Hearst Playground story in Current

[Anonymous]

Turtle Park has a baseball field, Hearst has a soccer field.

According to DPR, roughly 20,000 kids participate in activities at DPR facilities each season. Of those, roughly 10,000 play soccer, 1500 play baseball, and 8500 play other sports. Only the 1500 baseball players use "diamonds," the rest use "rectangles." So how does the inventory of "diamonds" compare to "rectangles"?

You can see the DPR field inventory here:
https://dpr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dpr/page_content/attachments/DPR%20Athletic%20FIeld%20Inventory_0.pdf

DPR has 113 fields, of which 65 are diamonds and 48 are rectangles. Yes, the sport with 15% of the players gets two thirds of the fields.

There is no diamond that is heavily used compared to the level of use the rectangles get. As others have noted, on weekends Hearst is in continuous use from morning until dark. As is Hardy, and Palisades, and Fort Reno, and Stoddert -- and every rectangle in the area. Ten games a day on Saturday is the norm. Meanwhile, a baseball field will be considered heavily used if has two games in the same day.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, not 15% of the players, 7.5% of the players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

Not really - it is a park for recreation - can you provide an example of another DPR property that is not programmed in some manner? Even RCP has a fair amount of programming and that is controlled by the National Park Service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The city contains an enormous amount of parkland but rather limited recreational space. The parkland is mostly controlled by NPS. This is something that is touched on in the DPR Master Facilities Plan, if you count the NPS space the city has an above-average amount of park space per citizen, but if you just count the DPR space it's way below most similar cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The question is moot, because Hearst IS a DPR facility. Taxpayers have been begging for a pool in the area. Our Councilmember listened and asked DPR to find a place and she found money in the budget for it.

There is plenty of room to keep the beautiful trees that line the field and the field while also keeping 1-2 courts (that are seldom used) and adding a pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The question is moot, because Hearst IS a DPR facility. Taxpayers have been begging for a pool in the area. Our Councilmember listened and asked DPR to find a place and she found money in the budget for it.

There is plenty of room to keep the beautiful trees that line the field and the field while also keeping 1-2 courts (that are seldom used) and adding a pool.

This isn't correct. At initial community meetings, DPR staff were frank in saying that Cheh selected the Hearst site, not the professional staff. The mayor was even blunter at a community forum earlier this year, where she made clear that a Hearst pool was Cheh's idea, not an administration priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The question is moot, because Hearst IS a DPR facility. Taxpayers have been begging for a pool in the area. Our Councilmember listened and asked DPR to find a place and she found money in the budget for it.

There is plenty of room to keep the beautiful trees that line the field and the field while also keeping 1-2 courts (that are seldom used) and adding a pool.

Wait. Didn't y'all say that the pool would fit within one tennis court. Now it's "one or two" that could be displaced. Without a clear plan, the Hearst pool is as a PP suggested, like a Rorschach test. Some people just see what they want without any idea of its true dimensions or location. In any event, they will cut down a lot of trees, because otherwise some people will complain about a pool that is always shaded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Turtle Park has a baseball field, Hearst has a soccer field.

According to DPR, roughly 20,000 kids participate in activities at DPR facilities each season. Of those, roughly 10,000 play soccer, 1500 play baseball, and 8500 play other sports. Only the 1500 baseball players use "diamonds," the rest use "rectangles." So how does the inventory of "diamonds" compare to "rectangles"?

You can see the DPR field inventory here:
https://dpr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dpr/page_content/attachments/DPR%20Athletic%20FIeld%20Inventory_0.pdf

DPR has 113 fields, of which 65 are diamonds and 48 are rectangles. Yes, the sport with 15% of the players gets two thirds of the fields.

There is no diamond that is heavily used compared to the level of use the rectangles get. As others have noted, on weekends Hearst is in continuous use from morning until dark. As is Hardy, and Palisades, and Fort Reno, and Stoddert -- and every rectangle in the area. Ten games a day on Saturday is the norm. Meanwhile, a baseball field will be considered heavily used if has two games in the same day.

The original sin of the whole Hearst pool proposal is that no site selection was actually done. The DPR Master Facilities Plan called for one pool near Ward Circle and other near Chevy Chase. They didn't put in specific locations to avoid getting sidetracked with controversy but it's pretty clear they meant Turtle Park for the southern location, it's the only DPR facility nearby. It has been noted upthread that the Turtle Park location was scuttled by baseball supporters, but that seems pretty ridiculous considering the small number of baseball players and the abundance of DPR baseball facilities.

Why does DPR have such a lopsided distribution of facilities? Because of the way Little League is organized. The national Little League organization requires each local league to have geographic boundaries. All players, coaches, umpires and board members of the local league have to live within the boundaries, and all games have to be played on fields that are physically within the boundaries. DC has eight Little Leagues; since games are played on fields of differing dimensions depending on the age of the players, each territory has to have a full complement of fields of all dimensions. This balkanization leads to redundant facilities and low utilization. It also creates a political constituency. Any parent of a child involved in sports in the DC area is familiar with endless driving to get to where the facilities are. Except that doesn't happen with Little League -- they "have to" play their games within their territories. So if the baseball field at Turtle Park were removed for a pool, they couldn't shift some of the games to say, Hearst -- sorry, those are in different territories. It's also easier to say the soccer, lacrosse and ultimate players have to go somewhere else because Little League "has to" use certain fields, the other sports can go anywhere. Sadly, DPR puts up with and even encourages this nonsense.

So where did territories come from? Little League was founded in the late 1930's but really boomed in the 1950's. In that era, residential segregation by race was the norm in the US. It was just common sense, and virtually every institution was segregated. Little League boundaries were created to keep the races separate. DC is no different than anywhere else, the boundaries of the Little Leagues reflect the historical pattern of settlement. Every one of the eight LL organizations in DC has either Rock Creek or the Anacostia River as one of its boundaries.

DC should tell the Little Leagues that they need to merge into one city-wide organization if they want to continue to use public fields. Among other benefits this would free up a substantial amount of field space, which would give DPR the flexibility to site new facilities where they are most useful.

[Anonymous]

Fine, you go deal with the original sins of LL Baseball while the rest of us have fun enjoying the pool at Hearst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The question is moot, because Hearst IS a DPR facility. Taxpayers have been begging for a pool in the area. Our Councilmember listened and asked DPR to find a place and she found money in the budget for it.

There is plenty of room to keep the beautiful trees that line the field and the field while also keeping 1-2 courts (that are seldom used) and adding a pool.

This isn't correct. At initial community meetings, DPR staff were frank in saying that Cheh selected the Hearst site, not the professional staff. The mayor was even blunter at a community forum earlier this year, where she made clear that a Hearst pool was Cheh's idea, not an administration priority.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. People want an outdoor public pool somewhere wast of Rock Creek Park, whether it is near Ward Circle or Chevy Chase, Hearst is sort of between those two locations, so it is fine.

Even better if there could be one at Lafayette and one at Hearst, but whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fundamental question: Should Hearst remain a city "park" or be developed into a "DPR facility"?

The question is moot, because Hearst IS a DPR facility. Taxpayers have been begging for a pool in the area. Our Councilmember listened and asked DPR to find a place and she found money in the budget for it.

There is plenty of room to keep the beautiful trees that line the field and the field while also keeping 1-2 courts (that are seldom used) and adding a pool.

This isn't correct. At initial community meetings, DPR staff were frank in saying that Cheh selected the Hearst site, not the professional staff. The mayor was even blunter at a community forum earlier this year, where she made clear that a Hearst pool was Cheh's idea, not an administration priority.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. People want an outdoor public pool somewhere wast of Rock Creek Park, whether it is near Ward Circle or Chevy Chase, Hearst is sort of between those two locations, so it is fine.

Even better if there could be one at Lafayette and one at Hearst, but whatever.

Was there a site analysis done of Hearst versus other sites?

Oh, never mind.

[Anonymous]

Everyone knows that Turtle Park was taken off the table by the baseball lobby and Palisades because it is too far in one corner of the city.

As such, it only really leaves Lafayette, Chesapeake in Forrest Hills and Hearst.

Since Hearst is the one that is getting a renovation due to the stormwater issues, it makes sense to add the pool while they are at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that Turtle Park was taken off the table by the baseball lobby and Palisades because it is too far in one corner of the city.

As such, it only really leaves Lafayette, Chesapeake in Forrest Hills and Hearst.

Since Hearst is the one that is getting a renovation due to the stormwater issues, it makes sense to add the pool while they are at it.

We've also heard that NPS land was "taken off the table."

Then DC admitted through its FOIA response that there was never real consideration of other sites -- or for that matter, any analysis of Hearst itself. Or if there was, no one wrote a single memo, study or a simple email about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that Turtle Park was taken off the table by the baseball lobby and Palisades because it is too far in one corner of the city.

As such, it only really leaves Lafayette, Chesapeake in Forrest Hills and Hearst.

Since Hearst is the one that is getting a renovation due to the stormwater issues, it makes sense to add the pool while they are at it.

This is very telling. There was no serious consideration of larger or otherwise more suitable pool sites. Hearst was slated for work because of storm water issues, so Mary Cheh or someone decided to shoehorn a pool in. There's not much more to it than that.

[Anonymous]

So what kind of "study" would you like to see, other than one that suggests there is a better, DC controlled site, than Hearst?

Because right now, there isn't one.

Why waste taxpayer dollars that will come to the same conclusion that everyone but a hundred or so people who live around Hearst have come to?