Residents cry foul over proposed fields

Some Lynbrook and East Rockaway residents are concerned that their quality of life may suffer due to a proposed agreement between the Village of Rockville Centre and Molloy College to upgrade four of the village’s athletic fields with synthetic turf and create a new practice field.

According to the proposal, which was announced in late January, Molloy would pay $6 million for upgrades at the Skelos Sports Complex, Lister Field and Centennial Park in return for gaining home fields for its softball, field hockey and baseball teams. A plan formulated last year, under which Molloy would have partnered with Bay Park in East Rockaway, was turned down by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority.

The latest proposal calls for the creation of three multi-use, synthetic-turf fields that would meet National Collegiate Athletic Association standards for field hockey, baseball and softball, as well as the expansion of the number of fields available to Rockville Centre’s sports organizations. The village estimates that Molloy would occupy the fields about 20 percent of the time that they are available.

“A college-level facility is going to be in my front yard,” said Greg D’Archangelis, a Lynbrook resident whose home faces Lister Park. “It’s college level — it’s not high school, it’s not Little League. That means there’s no backstop. There are already foul balls coming in.”

D’Archangelis, who has lived on Chester Road — in the East Rockaway school district but with a Lynbrook postal address — for 25 years, said that he can accept some noise and activity when living so close to a park, but a college-level facility is something entirely different.

The project is currently in the design phase, and there is no timetable for construction, according to Rockville Centre village spokesman Jeff Kluewer. Representatives of both the village and Molloy are in discussions with Cameron Engineering, which is designing the project.