School Trustees to Vote on Canyon Sports Fields
The Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote tomorrow on whether to proceed with a $14 million renovation of Canyon Middle School's sports fields.
In collaboration with Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD), the district plans to replace the upper-level grass field with synthetic turf for playing soccer and baseball for school and public use. In addition to new turf and lights, the sports field project also includes installing new scoreboards, bleachers, and a batting cage. Student and staff restrooms, showers, and drinking fountains would also receive ADA and other accessibility upgrades.
HARD’s governing Board approved its part of the deal on July 1. The Trustees are expected to review three related resolutions at its July 11 meeting before making its decision on an amended agreement. Before the plan can move forward, the board must consider the design, construction, and facility use revisions, approve a conditional use permit with HARD to be able to operate on school property, and then sign off on the environmental assessments.
If approved, preliminary work on the upgrades could start as early as this year.
The vote follows months of presentations, reviews, and public input. Residents in the Greenridge Road and Briar Ridge Drive neighborhoods lobbied their concerns about potential late hours, excess noise, lax security around the non-field areas, traffic congestion, and bright lights, which prompted amendments to the resolutions.
Among the changes to the agreement, the new field lighting will be automatically dimmed by 80 percent at 9:00 p.m. At that time, all athletic and recreational activities will be required to stop for field clean-up and allow people to leave. The lights on the field will go completely dark at 10:00 p.m.
Anyone using the fields would not be permitted to use portable music devices or PA systems after 6:00 p.m.
While the school district manages the fields during school hours and approved after-school events, HARD will manage the non-school reservations and explain the rules to anyone renting the space. Permits will be required to estimate the number of people using the fields with spot checks by HARD employees or park rangers.
To help mitigate traffic, the proposed resolution notes that HARD should keep the number of people using the field during community time to no more than 300 people at any given time.
Despite the changes to the plan, neighborhood representative John Hauser said the District has essentially decided for the community and that there is very little they agree with.
“We appreciate that they tried to reduce the hours that the field would be used and that they will prohibit using portable PA systems, but they’ve decided these are acceptable changes,” Hauser told the Forum. “Our issue is not that they're upgrading the fields; we're for all that. But they’re changing the nature of the usage from a school field, which they initially called this, into a rental facility for HARD. It’s going to be used constantly. So, really, the whole nature of this area will change completely.”
Hauser said the plan for a field monitoring system for the Canyon sports fields is still vague. He said neighbors along the ridgeline around Canyon Middle School would conduct their own monitoring and report infractions to the school district and HARD. He added that the group has not ruled out seeking legal action if necessary to protect their homes.
The meeting starts at 5:30 at the District offices on Alma Avenue.