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Resident tells Milton council Deerfield Park design should prioritize multi‑use fields
Summary
A Milton resident told the City Council that public input overwhelmingly favored multi‑use fields at the planned Deerfield Active Park and urged staff to reflect those results in the final design rather than prioritizing dedicated pickleball courts.
John Lundstead, a Deerfield resident, told the Milton City Council during general public comment that recent public input and open‑house votes show strong support for multi‑use athletic fields at the planned Deerfield Active Park and urged staff to revise displayed input to reflect that preference.
Lundstead said the online and in‑person tallies included “80 votes for multipurpose fields” that were not shown in the park designer’s presentation and that residents expect the baseball fields to be usable for soccer, lacrosse and other sports. He said he and others recruited community members to respond to the design survey and that the public’s written and dot‑board votes were not reflected in the materials presented by Lowe’s Design.
The resident criticized a suggestion from the design team that the baseball organization Hopewell Baseball opposed multi‑use conversion, saying that public sentiment “is multi use fields” and that the current plans did not appear to honor that preference. Lundstead also pushed back on the scope for pickleball courts, saying the design was privileging an eight‑court configuration to support tournaments even though tournament play was not a central community need, and that existing regional pickleball facilities already serve many players.
Lundstead raised several site‑planning concerns: small infield and out‑of‑bounds areas near retaining walls, lack of warm‑up space for teams scheduled back‑to‑back, and how overlapping program uses would be managed. He told the council designers repeatedly answered “we’ll figure it out,” and urged elected officials to require the design team to document and show how community feedback, including the multi‑use preference, was incorporated.
The mayor closed general public comment after Lundstead and moved on to the consent agenda. The council did not take immediate action on Deerfield Park design during this meeting; Lundstead’s remarks were recorded during the public‑comment portion of the agenda.
