PROVINCETOWN — After several months of community input, Provincetown’s recreation dept. and the design firm Weston & Sampson unveiled two potential master plans for a rebuilt Motta Field at a lively 90-minute meeting on Feb. 8.
While the plans received largely positive feedback, people clashed over whether the project should prioritize recreation opportunities for the town’s youth or its elderly residents.
To kick off the hybrid meeting, which took place at Fishermen Hall in the Provincetown Schools and online, Weston & Sampson Vice President Cheri Ruane gave a presentation about the current site and the two redesigns.
The goals for the project, Ruane said, were to balance accessible and flexible programming, active and passive recreation, and sustainability and environmental resiliency at the site.
Both plans have a high school regulation-size soccer field and a Little League baseball field; tennis, pickleball, bocce, and shuffleboard courts; a four-lane paved track; a skate park; and designated event and multi-use spaces, along with an accessible plaza.
The key difference between the schemes is how those elements are configured. In scheme 1, a 250-meter track abuts the two fields and encircles one dedicated tennis court, two dedicated pickleball courts, and two combination courts. In scheme 2, a 440-meter track encircles the soccer and baseball fields while three combination tennis-and-pickleball courts sit single-file outside the track.
When the floor opened for questions, attendees flooded the microphone and the Microsoft Teams chat.
Jonathan Scott, a Provincetown resident, said that the presentation slides, which contained stock images of children frolicking on sports fields, depicted a “dream picture.”
“I wonder what this is going to look like the other 10 months of the year for residents who live here,” Scott said. Another resident asked why the plans seemed to cater to the recreational needs of children rather than adults.
“It’s school-driven and summer camp driven,” Ruane said. Motta Field is the dedicated home turf for the Provincetown Schools, while in the summer the town’s recreation dept. uses the space for its daytime programs.
Midway through the meeting, Eva Enos, who has three children and is chair of the Provincetown School Committee, approached the microphone in tears. “It disheartens me to hear that there are no children in this town,” she said. “I think we see what we want to see.”
After being heckled by a crowd member who said, “I brought my kids up in this town, too, so don’t start crying,” Enos continued. “Kids need sports,” she said. “This community needs diversity, and it comes from the children to the elderly.”
Residents were also divided on the tennis and pickleball court plans. Some supported designated courts for each sport to eliminate competition for the space; others said that more pickleball courts should be added.
Pickleball noise was also an issue. Samantha and Kara Keller, residents whose home abuts Motta Field, wrote in the chat that they supported Scheme 1, “which we believe will produce slightly less pickleball court noise because of the buffer zone.”
Robert MacDonald, who also attended the meeting remotely, asked in the chat about an “acoustifence” around the courts.
Scott expressed disappointment that neither plan included a pool and said he had advocated for a pool at the first community outreach meeting. “I am very pro children, but I am also very pro the aging population here,” Scott said. “I think a swimming pool would help tremendously in keeping some of these older adults more year-round.”
Ruane said that the footprint, cost, and other requirements for a public building made the site an unlikely candidate for an indoor pool.
The Motta Field project is also being developed in coordination with the recently approved municipal sewer expansion project, which requires placing a leaching field beneath Motta Field’s turf. Provincetown DPW Director Jim Vincent confirmed that a leaching field cannot be built under a structure such as a swimming pool building.
The leaching field will require about 72,000 square feet, Vincent said, or about 1.6 acres. Motta Field itself is about 4.5 acres.
The town is hoping to finalize a new design by Memorial Day, Recreation Director Brandon Motta told the Independent. Another public meeting is scheduled for May 3, at which a unified master plan will be unveiled — “a kind of best of both worlds to present back to the public,” Motta said.
Between May 2023 and the annual town meeting in April 2024, when voters would consider a funding request, securing grants will be Motta’s priority. He estimated that construction could begin in the spring of 2025 at the earliest.
