The complex will upgrade its current facilities with a softball field that will double for field hockey, a new soccer field and a swimming pool. The school's tennis courts will be torn down. The project will be built on the school's existing 8.8 acres.

As a condition of approval, the school cannot rent the new facilities to any outside group. Discussions are to continue about the fields' design.

The issue packed the city council chamber, and discussion of it lasted 2¹/2 hours before the project got the green light over the cheers of dozens of Presentation High School students, parents, and teachers.

Rajappan & Meyer Consulting Engineers project manager Keith Meyer told the commission that the school had already incorporated many neighborhood suggestions, including no night games on the playing fields, with only the swimming pool lit in the evening, until its closing at 8 p.m.

Based on neighborhood input, the project will include the planting of 54 trees, to screen the complex from Booksin Avenue houses, and additional landscaping on the grounds. The new configuration also added eight parking spaces and lowered the height of the fences facing the neighborhood from 10 to 8 feet, Meyer said.

The western edge of the playing fields will be 100 feet from the nearest home, with home plate "nearly a city block away," Meyer said. The swimming pool will be "two blocks away."

Speaking for the Booksin Neighborhood Group, resident Russ Lujan said to the commission that he didn't oppose the project. "I'm concerned that the [environmental impact study] is incomplete and inaccurate."

He played a tape recording of traffic noise outside his home, then an audio engineer's recording of a sports game. But, as San Jose Planning Commissioner Jay James pointed out, the recording of the sports game was not of a Presentation High event.

"I don't believe traffic will drown out a softball game," Lujan said. "It's a drone versus a staccato pitch."

Another resident, Bruce McCombs, told the panel he heard the "cling cling" of metal baseball bats in his house across the street even when his windows and doors were shut. "Are they entitled to it? You bet. It's their school." But he asked that only Presentation High students be allowed to use the facilities.

Meyer asserted that noise studies did compare the expected level of noise at the new complex under worst-case conditions like championship games and large crowds to levels at similar Bay Area facilities.

He grinned at the idea of mammoth crowds attending games and said, "We hope we get 5,000 people, but it's more like 20."

The neighbors also had parking concerns, which were addressed by Presentation High School Dean Mary Miller.

"We encourage students to park on campus as much as possible," she said. "We keep a record of the registration of every single student's car, so when there's a problem we can immediately find that student. If we can't find them we have the car towed. We closed the campus during school hours so they aren't coming and going for lunch. And they receive detention if they don't cooperate."

Presentation High School parents told the planning commission that safety and education problems were caused by the current lack of facilities for the swimming and soccer teams. Currently the 250 student athletes have to leave class 15 to 20 minutes early to borrow practice facilities at different San Jose schools in the area, the parents said.

The commission, however, also has concerns pertaining to fields and the proposed change from grass to artificial turf. Commissioners questioned how the fields would channel rainwater into storm drains, and asked the design firm to sit down with the planning department to discuss the options.

As the vote to approve the conditional permit was taken, Commissioner James thanked the Booksin residents for participating and emphasized that the decision was based only on land-use policies, not the potential athletic and educational benefits of the complex.