Kentfield board clears Marin Catholic field lights plan

The high school has passed an initial test in its effort to install 80-foot lamps to illuminate sports practices and games.

After an impassioned two-hour public hearing, the Kentfield Planning Advisory Board advanced a proposal for field lights at Marin Catholic High School.

The board voted 4-0 to recommend that the Marin County Planning Commission accept the application for review, with conditions.

The application seeks four 80-foot-high field lights at one of the school’s two athletic fields. If approved, the lighting would be allowed from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays during waning daylight in the fall and winter. The lights would also be allowed until 9:30 p.m. Fridays for a small number of varsity football games.

In a similar application in 2016, the school asked for lighting until 9 p.m. The school withdrew the application after county planning staff gave it a negative review.

Bitsa Freeman, chair of the Kentfield board, said the school’s new application was a lot stronger than the previous one.

“This time, they did a very thorough job,” Freeman said at the public hearing Wednesday before more than 100 people.

“We are recommending to the county that they accept the proposal, with conditions,” Freeman added. “We think there should be more specificity on the timing and the use of the lights.”

Board member Jeff Moulton said he would want the conditions to include regular enforcement of the lights-out times and a clear process for neighbors to register concerns.

The other board members voting in favor of the recommendation were Ross McKenna and Allison Crawford. Three board members were absent.

More than two dozen people spoke during the public comment portion of the hearing. They said the issue is the need to support student athletics while balancing the effects of traffic, noise and glare in the neighborhood.

“My father would have supported this proposal 100%,” said Mike Brown, son of the late Marin County supervisor Hal Brown, who represented the Ross Valley. “It’s the right thing to do for our kids and for this community.”

Helene Jaffe, a Greenbrae resident since 1967, said she supports exercise and athletic activity for youths, but not the increased proliferation of lights, noise and traffic.

“I’m not against sports — I just want to preserve the environment I’ve come to love,” Jaffe said. “With the lights, I really fear our way of life, and yours, will be terribly impacted.”

The high school, which has 730 students, has just the two athletic fields to serve 46 teams in 28 sports, Chris Roeder, chair of the Marin Catholic board of regents, told the Kentfield board.

“About 85% of our students engage in athletics,” he said.

Of the 46 teams, 21 require an outdoor field for both games and practices, Roeder said. A steady increase in female sports teams is exacerbating the acute lack of field space, he said.

“We can only add a women’s flag football team, now a MCAL sport, if we have the lights,” high school spokesperson Ross Guehring said, referring to the Marin County Athletic League.

The school has “engaged four experts in the areas of traffic and parking, lighting, acoustic and environmental,” Roeder said. “All came to the same conclusion: Stadium lighting would not negatively impact the local community and environment in any material or significant way.”

Opponents like Greenbrae resident Brendan Fogarty disagreed.

“I don’t see it as being substantially different from the 2016 proposal,” Fogarty said. “It is a 30% reduction in proposed use, but it would still bring the same negative impacts in light, noise and traffic increases in the surrounding neighborhoods.”

He said a 2016 letter from the Marin County Community Development Agency’s planning division gave a negative rating to the school’s application, causing Marin Catholic to withdraw it.

Since then, the school has been using temporary construction lights in the fall and winter to afford some extra field use, but that practice was cut back three years ago after the Kentfield advisory board said it would no longer allow an extension into February and March.

“We see it that if the process goes forward in the same way, it will be the same results,” Fogarty said.

Kevin Sharps, a 28-year Greenbrae resident and a member of the high school’s board of regents, disputed Fogarty’s conclusions.

“To say it’s the same as 2016 is not a good reading,” Sharps said. “There are some legitimate concerns, but since 2016, we have worked continuously to address each concern, one by one.”

The 30% reduction in use is a major change from 2016 and cannot be discounted, Sharps said.

“The new lighting technology is phenomenal,” Sharps said. “We can make it happen, with limited impact to the neighborhoods.”

Sharps said the entire community needs to work together for an equitable resolution.

“We have to figure out how to continue to advance and grow together,” he said.

According to Guehring, the application now goes to the Marin County planning division to assess its completeness and whether it is ready for review by the Marin County Planning Commission. If it is deemed ready, the commission would schedule a public hearing, he said.