July 14, 2019

A stadium is incompatible in residential neighborhood

Dianne Jenkins | Monroe Street resident

The neighborhood didn’t complain about EHS playing 4-6 lower level (JV and freshman) games per season on its athletic field from 1995 to 2015. The neighborhood complained when the field use intensified from 2015 onward. Last spring alone there were more than 40 games played on the athletic field — ten times the pre-2015 use.

The neighborhood worked with the Edgewood campus in 1995 and again in 2014 on the development of master plans. In each instance, the high school proposed a stadium; in each instance, this was taken off the table so that the plans, which included numerous other projects, would be approved.

 A stadium is an incompatible land use for a property that so closely abuts a dense residential neighborhood — this has been the neighborhood’s position for 30 years. Rather than accepting this and seeking another solution for where to play varsity football, soccer and lacrosse games, EHS has chosen an adversarial route.

 EHS’s position is ‘this is our land and we can do with it what we want.’

 Does that sound like a good neighbor to you?