Seattle Pacific University (SPU) wants to turn on the lights at its Wallace Field (3307 Third Ave. W.). SPU’s team pitched its design for new lights to the Queen Anne Community Council’s (QACC) Land Use Review Committee (LURC) on Nov. 18.
The update to the field would include six light poles — three on each side of the field — with five to six lights per pole. The poles would either be 37 or 60 feet high, depending on what permitting allows. SPU’s private committee also requested lower security lights be added to the north side to add some safety to the unlit part of the Ship Canal Trail. The project is projected to cost between $400,000 and $420,000.
Height variance
Wallace Field is an intramural field, used by SPU intramurals and for practice by athletic teams. The field is located on Nickerson Street between Queen Anne Avenue North and Third Avenue West. The Ship Canal Trail is on its other side.
“The level of lighting that we’re proposing is that of the bare minimum for a recreational field,” assistant facility-management vice president David Church said. “We felt if we lit it at all, we had to meet some standard to avoid the liability.”
The lights may not come on every day, Church said. Programming hasn’t been scheduled yet, he said, but that would go through SPU’s intramural office.
The lights would be fully automatic. They would also be accessible to turn off by phone, and they would have a curfew set.
“If this thing makes it through the hurdles with [the Department of] Ecology and the Department of Planning and Development (DPD), then we’ll come back and share programing info then,” Church said.
The lights would likely be 1,500-watt, double-halogen light, with the light sources aimed down and shielded. SPU is under several ordinances, including a shoreline permit with maximum pole-height ordinances of 37 feet. If the lights were installed at that level, they would be projected off-field and potentially shine into nearby homes in Queen Anne, said Chris Sote, electrical engineering associate at Sparling, said. At 60 feet, the lights could be angled down, and the off-site light glare would be greatly reduced.
Queen Anne resident Sharon LeVine expressed concern about herself and her neighbors who live above Wallace Field and currently have dark skies at night.
Sote said if they’re able to get the lights installed at 60 feet, there shouldn’t be any glare directed at LeVine and her neighbors.
Shoreline impacts?
Before coming to the LURC meeting, SPU shared the proposal with its citizens Standing Advisory Committee (SAC). During the second meeting, the SAC came up with a recommendation for the DPD, to install lights on the three north lights along the Ship Canal Trail.
While security lights are important, audience member Don Harper brought up the concept of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). One of the primary points of CPTED is that bright lights actually lower security, because pedestrians cannot see people hiding in the dark parts beyond the lights, he said.
“We don’t want to light this trail excessively, and it’s going to be minimum standards for trail lighting,” Sote said. “It just provides visibility.”
The plans need to be reviewed by both the DPD and Department of Ecology because the light could affect the wildlife habitat along the ship canal.
Attorney Steven Gillespie has been handling the permitting. To light Wallace Field, SPU needs a minor master plan amendment through DPD, a shoreline substantial development permit and a shoreline variance to allow for taller poles.
“To put in six poles with footings seems like a fairly minor project,” Gillespie said. “It’s fairly straightforward, but that shoreline variance goes to the city and then they send it to the Department of Ecology. It’s [their] call.”
Impacts to the shoreline habitat include roosting and predator-prey relationships, Gillespie said: If the poles were at 37 feet, the “impacts to the shoreline would be greater.” Gillespie believes SPU has a good argument and satisfies the criteria to get approved, but “public comment and support could actually help us out.”
“This is a unique situation where getting exceptions from the height limits vastly decreases the impact on the neighborhood,” he said.
A ‘straightforward project’
The construction would need to happen during the summer, Church said. The team would like to install the lights next summer, but the plans are dependent upon the permits.
Brian Dague, project manager from Mortenson Construction Co., would handle construction. Dague is already familiar with the field because he replaced the turf.
The poles would come in on flatbed trucks. There would also be concrete and vacuum trucks needed for the footings. The trucks would travel via Nickerson Street to Third Avenue and enter the northwest corner of the field.
The crew of between six and eight workers will install the south lights first. They will use power from an existing pole on the southeast corner of Nickerson.
“It’s a pretty straightforward project,” he said. “These guys have done all of the hard work, and we’ll come in and bang this thing out in about four weeks.”
After the SPU team had presented their plans and all questions were answered, LURC chair Marty Kaplan made a motion to write a letter of recommendation for the QACC. All of the attendees voted in favor of the plan, except for LeVine, who felt it was too premature at that time. Harper asked the letter include concerns regarding the security lighting and to echo the existing concerns about the shoreline and its wildlife.
The SPU team will present the plan to the QACC on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. at Queen Anne Manor (100 Crockett St.).
For more information, visit web1.seattle.gov/dpd/luib/Notice.aspx?id=16327
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