A proposal for an interim-use sports complex on McKean Road that is being kicked around at city hall has some Almaden Valley residents debating over the use of that land.

Proponents of the sports complex say the existing athletic facilities in the area are inadequate and unsafe, and they need that land for more and better fields. Opponents to the sports complex say they aren't really opposed to the complex itself; it's the violation of the city's General Plan and a lack of proposed infrastructure that has them grumbling.

"The bottom line is we are woefully short of playing fields for the kids in the area," said Dan Smyth, past president of the Almaden Valley Youth Soccer League. "We need these fields."

But members of South Almaden Valley Rural Alliance, a group devoted to influencing land-use policy in the south valley region, said the Almaden Youth Association and the city have not sufficiently produced evidence of a need for the sports complex—which would include up to six soccer fields and six softball and youth baseball fields at a site on McKean Road between Harry Road and Fortini Road.

"We're for kids, we're for sports and all that. We're asking, 'Why do we need these new facilities?' " said Jerry Garrett, vice president of SAVRA. "There has not been a single document showing a need. There's a lot of want."

Fields throughout the area are shared between sports at schools and parks, allowing little time between practices and games, in turn causing traffic and parking congestion. The near-constant use of the fields provides inadequate time for maintenance and necessary repair.

Some residents around TJ Martin Park have reacted angrily to soccer parents parking in front of homes and blocking driveways during practices and games. There have been reports of car-eggings, and worse.

"We're having some issues with neighbors around TJ Martin Park. I witnessed one of the residents watering his lawn and sticking the hose in an open window of a car parked along the street," Smyth said.

Smyth said there have been similar problems at Gunderson High School, and believes that having the soccer fields in a somewhat-isolated area where parking spaces would be ample would relieve the burden of parking situations in the neighborhoods.

But all those parking spaces would be filled with cars that would be traveling to and from the complex for practices and games, creating a heavy burden on a two-lane road that was not designed to handle traffic volume that many argue the new fields would produce.

"We've been looking around, and we've found alternative places," said Nancy Lascola, president of SAVRA. "Almaden has over 150 parks. Why does everything have to be at one park? If you start splitting it up, it's not a high impact on anyone."

Laura Gordon, who lives near the proposed interim complex and is a member of the South Almaden Valley Rural Alliance, said she and her neighbors are for a sports complex, just not in that location without addressing traffic and water concerns.

"We're not opposed to development, we know it's coming," she said. "We're opposed to [the sports complex] because they're not changing the infrastructure. Of course we would rather look at a nice green field instead of a huge development, but that's not in the plan."

The city's initial draft environmental impact report found that there would be negligible to no effect caused by the increase of traffic to and from the interim fields. Gordon and other neighbors say that's impossible and estimate that more than 2,300 cars a day will travel McKean Road.

"The 2,000 cars a day are not interim cars, they're real cars," Garrett said.

Smyth said he can't calculate in his mind how the group is coming up with those figures.

SAVRA hired its own experts, Tom Brohard and Associates, to conduct a study based on the sports-complex proposal, the city's General Plan, existing road conditions and traffic volume.

Brohard and Associates contradicted the findings of the city's draft impact report, saying the city omitted impacts to surrounding area streets, and contained factual errors in calculations, and concluded that if the environmental impact report were revised to address those issues, the document would likely report significant traffic impacts.

Lascola said the complex violates 20 points of the city's General Plan, including many traffic and safety issues—and, she said, if these were mitigated by the city's widening of the county-operated road with city money, that mitigation would also conflict with the General Plan—and includes numerous points of concern about water and sewers.

Stan Ketchum, project manager for the city's planning department, said that his office received a significant number of comments as a result of the public review of the draft impact report, and based on those comments, the city has ordered a full report, which is due out in the spring.

Backing the project with hands-on involvement and financial support is Vice Mayor Pat Dando, the councilwoman for District 10, where most of the supporters of the soccer complex live. The area where the complex would be located is outside of her district in an unincorporated area of San Jose, and residents there have no political representation in city hall.

The AYA filed the original application for a use permit with the county but ran into a number of hurdles, said Rachael Gibson, land use policy aide to County Supervisor Don Gage. The city then took over the project as a public agency filing permits for use as a public park, effectively taking control of land-use decisions for that project because it falls under the city's sphere of influence.

Because the sports complex site has not been annexed to San Jose, it will not have access to city water, roads or sewers. Many surrounding area property owners draw their water from wells and worry that the irrigation demands to keep the fields green would deplete their resources.

"We get about three gallons a minute from our well," said Kevin Lamb, who owns property adjacent to the proposed site. "That's like the bare minimum to get by."

Lascola said SAVRA hired certified hydrogeologist Bruce Abelli-Amen to study the effects the proposed complex would have on the area. Among the impacts found by Abelli-Amen were a scarce water supply, potentially poor water quality due to insufficient clearance between the water table and the septic systems and possible disturbance of mercury left from mining that ended in the area in the 1970s, and subsidence that could develop as a result of long-term groundwater pumping. The report noted that between the years of 1934 and 1967, Santa Clara Valley experienced a surface level drop of up to eight feet caused by groundwater pumping.

Abelli-Amen's examination of the draft environmental report found that a cumulative analysis was omitted and it has no study of impact to groundwater users upstream or downstream.

"Nobody wants to suck the wells dry. That wouldn't benefit anyone," Smyth said.

One possible solution to the water demand, according to Smyth and Dan Kennedy, also part of the youth soccer league, would be to install artificial turf at the fields.

"The new generation of artificial turf is much safer," Smyth said. "It looks like grass, you just don't need to water it. But it is more costly."

Final plans for the complex haven't been determined, Smyth said, but he estimated costs would range from $1.5 million to $2.7 million. Those amounts are based on the use of grass and would escalate if the complex is constructed with artificial turf, he said. The funding for the project would be a joint effort between the city and the Almaden Youth Association, and the association would manage the complex, agreeing to limited availability for the city.

The complex would occupy 35 acres of undeveloped land owned by the San Jose Unified School District. The city would lease the land from the district on an interim basis at a cost of one dollar per year for 20 years or until alternative facilities for the fields are found or the district is ready to build a new school there. The district would not be in a position to build until specific criteria, such as job growth in the Coyote Valley, are triggered by policies outlined in the urban reserve and General Plan's growth-management strategy.

In the meantime, the youth sports groups in Almaden Valley say they need that space for the kids, and it's more than just parking and overcrowding that concerns some.

"The condition of the current fields is terrible," Kennedy said. "At a recent coaches' meeting, that was the No. 1 concern."

Gopher holes dot the parks and school fields, creating hazardous, ankle-turning conditions. The fact that the fields are in near-constant use has left many of them with large bare and brown patches. The league and the associations spent about $30,000 over five months to maintain the fields, but the fields are so overused they just can't keep up, he said.

Gordon, Garrett, and Lascola empathize with the concerned parents and say there are a number of residents near the site who are also involved in soccer.

"We've been known as child haters and NIMBYs," Gordon said. "But that's not the case at all."

The "not in my back yard" concept doesn't factor in at all, said Lascola.

"It's supposed to be a planned area, and this is not in the planning," she said.