Just as the Lincoln Park soccer field wars seemed to be waning, a fight has erupted on a second front. But this battle doesn’t pit residents against the Park District—this time it’s one group of park users against another, with the Park District fanning the flames.
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This April Latin was about halfway through building the field—whose price tag had risen to $2 million—when Protect Our Parks, a group of north siders, went to court and halted construction on the grounds that the Park District had not sought approval from the Chicago Plan Commission, as the law requires for any project on lakefront parkland. Under pressure from Cook County judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird, the Park District terminated its contract with Latin.
A victory for the community? Not completely. For one thing there’s a big heap of dirt in Lincoln Park where there used to be a meadow. For another, the Park District says it’s going to finish the field, covering Latin’s costs, on its own—that is, with public dollars—and will seek consent to do so from the Plan Commission on August 21.
“We’ve got the Park District pushing ahead with the south field but dragging its feet at Foster,” Tresser told me. “What’s going on here?”
This was the backdrop for the August 5 meeting of the parks committee, which is chaired by Alderman Smith. There was one item on the agenda: a “briefing” on “the use of artificial turf on Park District property.” Smith says she called the meeting after parks advocates expressed concerns that synthetic surfaces can give off toxic chemicals, but no doctors or health experts testified. Instead, the meeting was dominated by soccer boosters and open-space advocates. The soccer boosters, including Costello and other AYSO leaders, talked up artificial turf because it minimizes rainouts and ankle injuries; members of Protect Our Parks cautioned against its widespread use.
If Chicago wins the right to host the Olympics, the space crunch will only get worse—under current plans, chunks of Lincoln, Douglas, Jackson, and Washington parks would be turned into construction zones for various sporting arenas.
