THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050354
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 120 lines
The city ballfield where about 175 children in East Ocean View practice and play sports four times a week is rock-hard and studded with half-buried bricks and broken glass.
For about five years, Coach Elarry McRae has lobbied the city to improve the field, which is part of the East Ocean View recreation center on 20th Bay Street.
But the city has said it can't afford the estimated $100,000 needed to put in new turf and lights.
``It's not a matter of lack of caring, it's just too much competition'' from other city projects, said Stanley Stein, the city's parks director.
One of those projects is three blocks away, where the city intends to spend at least $60 million to redevelop the upper Bay streets. Bulldozers are knocking down the homes where many of the young players live.
McRae said the city's willingness to spend so much on that project while crying poverty when it comes to the park improvements convinces him that ``we don't care about the youth of Ocean View.''
The ballfield is part of the 15-year-old East Ocean View Recreation Center, which includes a gymnasium and a game room. For about 10 years, the field was little more than a vacant lot, Stein said. But in 1991, the community came together with the parks department and developed the lot into a playing field, with goal posts and a baseball diamond. The field quickly deteriorated, Stein said, because it was built on the site of a former dump and the grass did not grow well.
Despite its condition, the field is well-used because it is next to the surrounding streets where many children live.
As president of the East and West Ocean View Athletic Association, during football season McRae supervises a staff of 31 coaches. The association fields about 125 football players in various age groups, and 40 to 50 cheerleaders. The teams play other teams from athletic associations around the city, McRae said. In the spring, the field is used for baseball.
But about 50 children have dropped out of his program this summer, McRae said, because their parents did not want them playing on the battered field. As it is, the coaches only use the small sections that still have grass.
Transforming the area into a proper playing field would be expensive, Stein said. The dirt would have to be dug out, then new topsoil brought in, an irrigation system installed, then sod put down on top. Stein said the city now is making efforts to approach community and business leaders in Ocean View to start a private fund-raising effort to find the necessary money.
But McRae and some council members wonder whether the city is using too much of its ``neighborhood spending'' money on large redevelopment projects, thus forcing someone who wants a park improved to turn to private donations.
The city does not shortchange more traditional neighborhood improvements to pay for redevelopment, City Manager James B. Oliver said. The redevelopment projects the city is pursuing in Ocean View, Lamberts Point, Park Place, Brambleton and Berkley were arrived at with extensive community input, he said.
``I think the city's strategy has been to stabilize neighborhoods,'' Oliver said. ``The planning department goes in and does a plan, with the help of the neighborhood.''
But McRae said many of the redevelopment efforts in Ocean View disrupt, rather than help, the lives of the children who play on his ballfield.
``Most of my kids have lived at one time or another in places they have torn down,'' McRae said. He's also seen teams shrink as players moved away after their homes were demolished, he said. The city's redevelopment efforts are focused on decreasing housing density and run-down homes. They target apartment buildings and deteriorated housing for removal, and replace them with more middle-class, single-family homes, which are then sold. Tenants of the old homes usually must move elsewhere.
The total redevelopment of East Ocean View, which is meant to transform the 90 acres into an upper-class neighborhood, will cost anywhere from $60 to $80 million. The city finance office says the project will pay for itself through new tax revenues by the year 2023.
The $4 million the council appropriated this budget year for the project is part of the $24 million the city classified as this year's neighborhood spending budget. About 80 percent of this money is being used on redevelopment and conservation efforts throughout the city, much of it handled by the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
Councilman Herbert M. Collins, although unfamiliar with the ballfield because it is not in his ward, was not surprised by the conditions there. He said the the city has a habit of ignoring vital neighborhood needs in favor of established city projects.
``Come hell or high water, they are going to get the projects they want done,'' Collins said of the city administration. ``But when it comes to the immediate need of citizens, we have difficulty getting those projects done.''
Collins said the council needs to establish greater oversight of the redevelopment authority, so that the council can influence more directly how the money is spent.
City Manager Oliver said maintaining and equipping parks was a priority in the city, and that the ballfield in East Ocean View was an exception. The city had not planned for it to be used so heavily, Oliver said. The football and baseball programs there were started by McRae working more on his own. But McRae said they can't clean it up alone.
During one clean-up drive, McRae said, he and the players filled dozens of 50-gallon drums with rocks and debris. In one spot on the field, a rusty iron pipe still sticks two to three inches out of the ground. Where it comes from or goes to, nobody seems to know.
``The field is a total waste,'' says McRae. ``I take a chance of a child getting glass in his arm or busting his head open when we use it.''
Mayor Paul D. Fraim said he would support spending redevelopment money on improving public spaces such as parks.
``One of the worst blighting influences on a poor neighborhood is a poorly used public space,'' Fraim said.
Councilman W. Randy Wright, in whose ward the field lies, said conditions there were ``horrible.''
But Wright, a strong backer of the redevelopment efforts in Ocean View, said he did not want to discuss city spending priorities.
``I wish we could find a way to fund it,'' Wright said of the park improvements. ILLUSTRATION: CANDICE C. CUSIC/The Virginian-Pilot
Elarry McRae of the East Ocean View Recreation Center wants the city
to improve the bare, debris-strewn ballfield where his players
practice.
Color VP map
Area shown: Ballfield at Ocean View Recreation area
Redevelopment area
KEYWORDS: BALL FIELD NORFOLK PARKS AND RECREATION by CNB