FAQs
The page is intended to provide your answers to commonly asked questions. In addition, you will see links to other other town’s success stories and findings.
If you have questions that are not posted here, please drop an email to info@justturfit.org
What effect will it have on the Village of Babylon?
A new turf field will provide a superior and safer playing field for as many as 19 of Babylon School District’s athletic teams, including Football, Soccer, Field Hockey and Lacrosse.
In addition to the high school sports, the physical education classes will also benefit from the field and its superior drainage - no more puddles to wade through.
It will also allow Babylon’s community sponsored teams to play home games, something which they are often not presently able to do. A turf field would provide the equivalent of four or five additional new fields in terms of capacity to accommodate contests without building four or five new fields. It would provide a solution to the current shortage of capacity and help resolve the problem of field quality and safety – problems that currently exist for school and community teams.
It will enable the scheduling of games at times which allow for parents to watch their children play – e.g. late afternoon, early evenings, nights.
Where will everyone park?
In the same parking areas that people attend games now.
What about the additional traffic problems?
The average game will not cause any more traffic than for currently-scheduled games. The current capacities of the principle grandstand, portable bleachers and standing room areas of the high school field will not increase when lights are installed or if a multi-purpose field is installed.
Who will be responsible for the cost of security, vandalism, garbage and insurance?
The Babylon School District will continue to own this responsibility.
Did anyone approach the residents on South Carll and Argyle Park to hear their concerns?
Every effort will be made to accommodate the concerns of those who reside near the field.
How late will the games go since the field will be lit?
Curfews would be established to assure that games will not be played late into the night. In addition, the modern technology of lighting systems allows for targeted lighting which would have minimal effects on surrounding residents.
How many nights a week will have games at night?
There would be a minimal number of night games, the lighting will help light the field during the dusk and early evening hours.
What about the noise at night?
Aside from a few major games, it is likely that most of the games would not attract large crowds or cause a great deal of noise.
Who will be responsible for scheduling all these events?
The Babylon School District.
Will Village residents be deterred from walking the track?
No. In fact, a lighted field will include lighting the track which could provide evening walk and runs for village residents. We would continue to ask for the residents’ understanding about safety and limiting the use of the track during games or practices which would pose risk to residents using the track.
Will there be a parking problem parking by the fire house in the evenings?
It will be very unlikely. Most of the games hosted by the field will attract far less people than a Saturday football game.
Will our volunteer rescue squad be responding to more calls?
No. All of the scheduled games and practices already are occurring with the rescue squad on call.
If there is a problem at school game at night and the schools are closed, who will be contacted?
There will always be school district supervision of all games – just as is the case presently.
What about local control of the field?
The Babylon School district will maintain 100% control of the field. The Babylon Village Turf Field Fund is raising money to defray the costs of the field.
Isn’t this just going to be used for Football?
To the contrary – a turf field would accommodate all field based sports such as Lacrosse, Field Hockey, Soccer, Track events. The technology of turf fields today allow for multiple fields to be outline within the surface of the synthetic. No more worries about lining a field for lacrosse or soccer on a football field. The field will be multi-purpose and the lining of the fields will be present for these sports – 365 days a year.
How long will the turf field last?
Most turf manufacturers provide a warranty with full replacement within the first eight years. Fields can last for long periods of time. A turf field company which has installed a field in Arizona has been in existence for 15 years under the scorching sun and heat of the desert under normal maintenance. The products are getting better each year and seem to last longer and longer than turf fields 10 years ago.
Won’t we have to spend a lot more money when the turf field needs to be replaced?
Outside of the warranty, if a field needs to be replaced there will be a cost but the technology appears to be more prevalent and in the 15 years of anticipated usage we can get the total cost of ownership saves money.
What about maintenance costs are they higher?
Natural Grass maintanence costs tend to be much higher and can vary from budget year to budget year. The savings of a synthetic field are much greater than the natural grass because the goal for the installation for the surface is to provide greater usage of the field without incurring additional damage to the fields. Maintenance costs for turf fields are less but if you factor in what the cost would be to maintain grass fields to the conditions a turf field would have for typical village use, the costs for natural grass would be much much higher than today and would still limit the usage of the fields to the community.
Other Town’s Success Stories
We’d like to point you to other sites where you read and gather more information about other town’s installation across the United States. Here are some quotes and links to other counties in the United States considering the installation or have installed synthetic fields.
From White Plains, NY
“A statistical chart in the synthetic turf memo put the cost of a Synthetic Field at $600,000, plus $21,000 maintenance over 10 years, or $621,000. By contrast a grass field would cost $300,000 to install, but with the additional maintenance would cost $804,000 to $904,000 to operate over ten years, hosting only 340 events compared to 2,800 for the synthetic field.”
From Cincinnati
“More area schools are switching to the greener pastures of plastic turf to save taxpayers’ money once spent on maintaining fragile grass fields.”
