Baseball Field Lighting Approval Sought

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has scheduled a public hearing for Thursday, July 3, on a proposal to install lighting towers at the recently constructed town baseball field at Fairfield Hills. The hearing is slated for 7:30 pm at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane.

In the application, the Parks & Recreation Department is seeking P&Z approval to modify the May 2007 special permit that allowed baseball field construction. When it initially applied to build the baseball field, Parks & Rec officials explained that they would return to seek P&Z approval for the installation of lighting towers.

The baseball field, which is not yet in use, was constructed on the land that formerly held Fairfield House at Fairfield Hills. In the mid-1990s, Fairfield House served as a state low-security prison for drug offenders known as Western Substance Abuse Treatment Unit (WSATU). It was the site of frequent prisoner escapes. Before that, the building was a residence hall for Fairfield Hills psychiatric patients.

The ball field is adjacent to the Newtown Youth Academy, which is under construction. Bridgewater House was demolished to create a site for the academy, which will be an indoor recreational sports facility.

The lighting design for the baseball field would focus light on the playing field and seek to reduce light spillage onto other areas. Also, the lighting fixtures are designed to reduce “sky glow” above the playing field.

In its application to the P&Z, Parks & Rec states that the lighting towers are being sought to extend the playing time at the field. The baseball diamond has 90-foot basepaths. The field is ringed with chain-link fencing. The bluegrass turf is irrigated. The electrical service that would power the lighting already has been installed at the field.

Preliminary plans call for installing eight lighting towers, of which four tower poles would be 80 feet high and the other four tower poles would be 70 feet high.

In May 2007, when the ball field proposal was under P&Z review, several residents living near Fairfield Hills questioned the wisdom of constructing a new field in view of problems that were occurring on two existing baseball fields at Fairfield Hills, near Mile Hill Road South.

Extensive earthen cutting and filling was required to create the large flat area necessary for the new full-size baseball field. Drainage control work was performed at the site to reduce the field’s effects on the nearby Deep Brook, a stream where native trout breed.

The baseball field site is within the town’s environmentally sensitive Aquifer Protection District, an overlay zone above the Pootatuck Aquifer where land uses are tightly regulated for environmental protection purposes.

The new baseball field is one component of the town’s ongoing redevelopment of Fairfield Hills, a former state psychiatric hospital that the town bought from the state for $3.9 million in August 2004. The 187-acre site includes many large masonry buildings that formerly were used for patient care and services. Town redevelopment plans call for the demolition of some buildings.