Submitted by Liz Eckert, Joseph Kantorski, Al Shehadi, Lucy Von Brachel
We four Greenwich property owners have referred to the RTM the Planning and Zoning Commission’s Municipal Improvement approval of the Town’s plan to build a new, substantially larger skating rink facility in Eugene Morlot Memorial Park in Byram.
While we support a new rink and share the widespread frustration over how long the process of planning a new rink has taken, we opposed the Town’s current proposal because it is not consistent with the Town’s Plan of Conservation & Development, does not reflect the involvement of the neighboring community, and has not responded to consistent feedback from the community, the general public, Town commissions and other stakeholders.
The Town’s plan for a new rink is driven by one priority set by the Rink User Advisory Committee for Design and Planning that has taken the reins over designing a new rink – that there should be no loss of ice time during construction of a new rink. The inconvenience of rink users having to find ice time at one of the many other rink facilities in our area supersedes the needs of all other stakeholders.
Further, while there is strong support for building a quality municipal rink, the advisory committee has settled on a design that is more comparable to the commercial rink facilities in our area, particularly with respect to interior amenities such as the number of locker rooms. Other priorities, such as preserving open space in a part of town sorely lacking in public green space, or balancing the desire for a well-outfitted athletic facility with a scale appropriate for a dense residential neighborhood, have been ignored.
The result is a $24 million redesign of almost the entirety of Morlot Park which includes a new 40,000 square foot rink facility, more than 30% larger than the current rink, “flips” the rink location with the existing baseball field and constructs a new baseball field on the location of the current rink. The Byram Veterans Memorial Tree Grove, now surrounded on all sides by open vistas, will be “honored” with a 40 foot tall windowless wall almost immediately adjacent to one end of the grove.
In the four years since the current plan was endorsed by the Rink Users Committee, the project has not changed in any meaningful way in response to concerns raised by the Town planning board, Town finance board, the RTM, the Byram Neighborhood Association, members of the Byram Veterans Association, and numerous members of the Greenwich community. Those concerns include the size and location of the new rink; the impact of the “flip” on one of the few areas of meaningful open space in Byram; the compatibility of the proposed facility with the surrounding residential neighborhood; and the project’s cost which is expected to be five times the $5 million renovation estimate considered at the start of the process.
As we and many others have stated for more than four years, on the record, in multiple public forums that are easily available for those willing to listen, we believe the new rink should be constructed in the same place as the existing rink, with minimal disturbance to the rest of the park, and that the size and amenities of any new rink should seek to balance the needs of the skating community for a quality facility with the needs of the surrounding community.
We look forward to a fulsome discussion by the RTM.
Liz Eckert
Joseph Kantorski
Al Shehadi
Lucy Von Brachel
The authors are residents of Byram who currently or previously served on the board of the Byram Neighborhood Association and/or represent District 4 as members of the RTM.