Save Wallingford Playfield- NO TURF!

Turf is known to have harmful chemicals with high levels of PAH, PFAS, and heavy metals. Such materials should not be used anywhere since they pose risk to health and environment. Use real grass and keep trees! They provide shade! This should remain public park.

Our kids grew up using this park and we walk down there almost every day to see what’s going on. It should remain the community playfield it’s always been. Please respect the people who love and use this park! In this time of environmental crisis, laying down artificial turf for, essentially, a single entity’s use reflects narrow and irresponsibly shortsighted decision making.

Our children played in this park and now our grandchildren love to play there as well. Removing this neighborhood park for the high school is just wrong! Aside from the major environmental factors, such an artificial turf field removes the daily community interactions the park provides. Please listen to the people who currently use this beloved park!

My partner and I use the field everyday for our own extracurricular, dog walking, running, passing a ball, or just enjoying watching people play

We are a local family who use the lake multiple times a week, for running and biking and playing.

NO TURF NO MORE TRASH

We need Wallingford Playfield as a public park! Not a high school football field.. Increased population density needs to be top priority!

Please preserve the entire park for free access to everyone!

This park serves the greater neighborhood 24 hours a day. It is a green respite for preschoolers, their caregivers, drop-in sport activities, junior high and high school students eating lunch, dog walkers, moon gazers and every age group that lives in the neighborhood. Hard-scaped structured school sports programs should not replace this multifaceted amenity for the rest of the community. Lower Woodland is developed for that purpose.

We use this park often. High school athletic programs are not what the broader community needs. This is a very biased use of the park. Do not change the current usage.

My name is Chris McPoland. I was an educator in SPS for 15 years, and I’ve lived in Wallingford since 1978. My concerns regarding Seattle Parks give-away of control of our central neighborhood gathering and green space to SPS are as follow: Even cork-substrate synthetic turf fields have “grass” blades that are composed of polyethylene (86.3%) and polypropylene, plastics which accounted for up to 15% of meso- and macroplastics found in river and sea surface waters, resulting from runoff (see: Environmental Pollution Vol. 334, from Oct 2023). This plastic field would replace and smother the living soil - an eco system which supports the health of the surrounding trees and shrubs. Cork vs. rubber pellet substrate can only mitigate the heat dome effect, not do away with it. In the unlikely scenario where you would actually have room to plant 3 trees for every mature tree removed because of lack of space, those that survive the plastic environment would not be mature for about 20 years and so do not truly “replace” our parks removed trees. The point of a park is to have a preserve of nature in our community to be enjoyed by all of us living in the middle of an urban environment. Our neighborhood has seen an explosion of removal of single family homes with yards being replaced by townhouses and apartments with no yards. Where will these families be taking their children to play in a natural green space - to Wallingford Playfield Athletic Field but only after dark? Let’s see the proposed schedule with times of day noted for public access to the park after SPS has exclusive use for the full school day and for after school practice also. If the field doesn’t fit without removing and relocating the wading pool and new play structures and restrooms (and trees?) to a different corner, then, umm, it doesn’t fit. Meridian Field has been discounted due to “displacement of character & current use” - but the same holds true for Wallingford Playfield. The clear candidate should b

I am a neighborhood resident and a former Seattle Schools parent. I strongly oppose demolishing Wallingford's one green space and removing some of Wallingford's only mature public trees to build a plastic field, from which the public would be excluded at almost all times. I am sympathetic to the idea that Lincoln needs a practice field. But, as many people have suggested, redeveloping their parking lot (!) would actually add rather than take away from the neighborhood. Wallingford is already a heat island, and the mature trees and turf at Wallingford Playfield are some of the only public areas which are working to mitigate that heat. Not only does this proposal remove mature trees, but artificial turf contributes to the urban heat island effect. The negative effects of this proposal, including on current Lincoln and Hamilton students and their families, as well as other neighborhood residents far outweigh the single positive of creating a practice field for HS athletes that could be located somewhere else.

I do not think the community field should be turned into an athletic field at all. It will impact everyone negatively and it is still not enough space to satisfy the needs of the school, they should find a place where they have enough space and don’t take away a key park within the neighborhood.

Please do not take over Wallingford Park. It is loved and used by the community that lives here every day. Putting in a track will take way our gathering space. Please leave the park. My family and I have used it as long as we have lived here in all stages of our lives.

Wallingford has been upzoned to an ‘urban village’ and thus is increasingly dense with new apartments and townhouses that do not have any yard or green space. Also Wallingford is the only neighborhood in the city that does not have a community center. Thus, this tiny park is critical for neighborhood residents to exercise, play, picnic, and rest in green space. Yes, Lincoln needs a practice field, but build it somewhere else - not on our small and very well used park!

I love walking here with my family and have enjoyed many picnics! Please keep this a shared park!

I have lived on Stoneway for 7 years now and this park is part of my every day morning routine! My friends and family visit I take them there for picnic! I deliberate take longer rounds through the park when I run my errands because it is so nice! On the way back I love interacting with people from community, saying hi to people kids and pets. Please do not take this wholesome aspect of our community away!!!!

I love this park. It brings me much joy.

turf is horrible for the environment and has been linked to cancer. why are we replacing grass with plastic?????

We have artificial turf fields nearby. Lincoln highschool also has a vast parking lot that can be easily turfed. Save Wallingford Park for the entire community.