Some Milton neighbors don’t want trees ‘mowed down’ for athletic complex

Milton leaders say a proposed athletic complex is desperately needed, but some neighbors along Deerfield Parkway are fighting the plans.

Holly Proano, who lives in the Lake Deerfield townhome community, says the park would be unnecessary and disruptive.

“If you go down the street, it’s very calm, very quiet,” she told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims . “There are walking paths. We don’t have a lot of traffic.”

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She thinks the complex, which would include a parking lot with about 300 spaces, would create too much traffic, noise, and light pollution.

“The lights, we’re very concerned about the lights,” she said. “And the nature – why just tear this down?”

The park would be located along the 300 block of Deerfield Parkway, a short distance north of Windward Parkway.

Plans call for four baseball diamonds and two rectangular fields for football, lacrosse, and soccer. Batting cages, pickleball courts, basketball courts, and playgrounds would also be included.

The city hopes to break ground in the next year, with construction expected to take eight months to a year and cost about $28 million.

“We just don’t have enough field space for our citizens’ demands,” said Milton city manager Steven Krokoff.

Given the city’s fast-growing population, he said Milton’s sports fields are overwhelmed.

“What we’re seeing is our children doubled, sometimes tripled up on the fields trying to get their practice in because we just don’t have enough field space,” Krokoff said.

The property, which is now wooded, is primed for development.

If it doesn’t become a park, he said it would be commercially developed.

“I think that this use would be far more enjoyable to the neighbors over there and far less impactful from a traffic standpoint and from a visual standpoint,” Krokoff said.

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Cheyenne Johnson, who lives nearby, will miss the woods but says an athletic complex would be a good fit.

“I think it’ll be cool. There are a lot of kids around here, there are a lot of apartment complexes,” she said. “It would be really cool to have another community space.”

But Proano said it would be better to create a nature park with trails.

“Ninety percent of that space over there is gonna be mowed down,” she said.

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