Peachtree City’s Planning Commission has approved a proposal to erect permanent lights on the practice sports field at McIntosh High School.

School athletic director Steve Cole said the lights were needed to provide additional practice time at night, particularly in the January through March months. With the addition of Lacrosse to the school’s spring sports, scheduling practice time becomes a challenge with soccer and other sports going on simultaneously, Cole said.

Cole said the school has no intention to play games on the field on a regular basis but may need to schedule a few should rainouts become an issue. A few JV and freshman soccer games were played on the field last year, he noted.

Cole said the school is working with Peachtree City-headquartered Cooper Lighting to develop a lighting plan that takes into account homeowners’ wishes not to have light intruding on their homes.

The school is not proposing to add bleachers or any loudspeakers to the practice field. And the school also has committed to having the lights cut off by 9 p.m.

But neighbors still have concerns about the lighting and how it will look.
Christina Abell, who lives right off Walt Banks Road and Southern Trace Court directly across from the practice field, said she has lost several trees to disease that would have buffered the lights from her home. Abell said she wanted to see more specific plans for the lighting but she did not want to oppose the school.

Abell said she is concerned about the lights affecting the potential for reselling her home.

Kathy Swartz, who lives near the field off Peachtree Parkway, said she was concerned about the practice field becoming a playing field in the future with bleachers and loudspeakers. Swartz said she lived in her home when the practice field was first built, and she was concerned with the revelation that the school system technically doesn’t have to comply with any city ordinances or the conditions being developed for the practice field lights.

Although the city had requested the Board of Education to add landscaping after the lights were installed if necessary, school facilities director Mike Satterfield noted the school could only pay to install landscaping on its property. Satterfield said it is possible that the school’s booster club could pay for landscape improvements off the school property though if necessary.

Satterfield said the idea for lighting the practice field initially came from a need for the football team to practice at night or in the morning to avoid 100-plus degree temperatures during the day the first few weeks of school.

The commission’s 3-1 approval, with Joe Frazar voting against, was cached on the remaining details of the memorandum of understanding being worked out between the city, school officials and surrounding neighbors in the next few weeks.

But, as interim Community Development Director David Rast explained, the school board is not required by law to obey any city development ordinance.