Why not Byxbee? Why not Byxbee? (March 11, 2005)

Golfers suggest placing athletic fields on Byxbee Park

by Jocelyn Dong

Threatened by the idea of turning 20-40 acres of the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course into recreational sports fields, golfers this week proposed an alternative -- Byxbee Park.

Byxbee, located at the end of Embarcadero Road, is a 30-acre open-space preserve with verdant hills, outdoor artwork and meandering trails. When the adjacent 137-acre city landfill closes in about six years, that property will be added to the park.

In land-strapped Palo Alto, Byxbee Park has been the focus of considerable attention. For the past five years, city staff were eying it for a new waste-and-recycling plant. That plan was shot down by the City Council last month.

The extreme shortage of playing fields in Palo Alto led Mayor Jim Burch, Vice Mayor Judy Kleinberg and Council member Yoriko Kishimoto to propose a redesign of the 180-acre golf course at Monday's council meeting. City staff will study the possibility, including ways to fund it with private money, and report to the council in three to four months.

The study isn't sitting well with golfers such as Donald Hughes, who has been playing at the course on Embarcadero Road since 1954. He questioned the common sense of redeveloping a course that underwent a renovation in 1998-99. Golfers are still paying off the bond through higher green fees.

"Six million dollars -- that's what we owe," he said. Re-doing the course now, he added, would be like "scraping $6 million into the garbage can."

In addition, the golf pro shop and restaurant have multi-year leases, which would have to be bought out, he said.

But athletic fields on Byxbee Park -- that's an idea Hughes could support. "The dump area is going to be closed and covered and there for nothing else," he reasoned.

Richard James, the director of the city's community services department, said the field-space shortage is all too real. Nearly all of Palo Alto's parks bigger than an acre host soccer and other athletic games and practices, he said.

"Here's what brings it home: You know the lawn-bowling green? The landscaped lawn around it is used by little 6-year-old soccer players," he said.

James favors looking into the golf-course conversion, but hesitated giving an opinion on Byxbee. "It's nothing but hills. ... We'd have to have a landscape architect look at that land," he said. Since the park is built on closed landfill, he questioned whether there could be any digging. "There's trash underneath."

Former council member Emily Renzel, who led the fight to prohibit the city's proposed "environmental services center," didn't find the Byxbee idea too appealing.

"Ideally it would be completed as planned," she said, noting that the land is intended to be a pastoral park, used for quieter recreational uses than sports.

She pointed to city studies that warned of using Byxbee for activity that would disturb the sensitive environment. Fertilizers could alter the vegetation and night lights could affect the wildlife, she said.

In addition, she said, athletic activity would require more parking and bring in more cars to the Baylands.

One person watching from the sidelines is Dave Goldman, chair of the Got Space? committee, which has been advocating for additional fields in the city. Goldman said the group had considered Byxbee as a possibility for field space in a report a few years ago -- but a remote one.

"It seems like a long, long time away from fruition," Goldman said. "The key issue is we need (fields) now."

He withheld judgment on the golf-course idea, but is eager to see the results of the preliminary study.

In the near term, Palo Alto is likely to gain two new soccer fields and a practice field if the council approves an agreement with Stanford University this spring. The Mayfield deal would place the recreational space at El Camino Real and Page Mill Road and could be ready as soon as this fall, according to city staff. Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.

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