Over the course of the past 7 years as I’ve been invested in the Lamorinda sports community, I’ve learned a great deal and had countless interactions with residents, community officials, school district personnel, and parks, recreation and planning commission members. In Moraga, where I started coaching with Moraga Baseball Association in 2016, leased a small studio in 2018, and then opened up Ballplayers in early 2019 - I’ve known the demand for outdoor sports and recreation facilities far outweighs what Moraga currently has to offer.

Currently the Town has zero sports fields outside of school district property, of which none of them are artificial turf - which would allow significantly higher usage throughout the year. Of the Town-operated parks, Hacienda De Los Flores is the defacto community center but is primarily operated by Wedgewood Weddings. Moraga Commons is host to a disc golf course, playground, sand volleyball and basketball courts - but no sports field. And Rancho Laguna is a dog park before 9am and after 5pm, which causes it to be mostly unsuitable for sports practice or competition.

As I’ve explored numerous concepts related to improving or building sports fields in the town, I’ve come to realize many of the challenges. The 3 ways I’ve looked at it are through 1) Publicly developed fields, 2) Through a public/private partnership, and 3) Privately developed.

The only ways I see that the Town would build any new facilities would be through new acquisition of land or as a requirement of development for a residential or commercial developer. To the first point, there isn’t much land remaining for the Town to acquire, and they have historically focused on maintaining and preserving open space, rather than building or improving recreational facilities. Requiring a developer to allocate land for development is an interesting concept - and the model used by the City of Orinda to develop Wilder Fields as part of the larger Wilder community has turned out to be a huge success. Moraga has the opportunity to follow a similar concept through several proposed developments in town.

A public/private partnership is another idea I have explored, both through working with the Town of Moraga, as well as potentially working with the school districts (both MSD and AUHSD). Partnering with the Town would likely involve collaboration related to the developer land allocation mentioned above where myself and other parties could help to determine the best use of land as a community benefit - and then figure out how that development is built, paid for, and utilized. Through a partnership with the school district, it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement where the school and their physical education activities would benefit from improved sports facilities - and with investment from private organizations, nonprofit clubs, and potentially even residents - the community at large would also benefit from better utilized and maintained facilities.

For a privately built field, high land costs, a limited amount of flat land in Moraga, and zoning challenges are the primary hurdles. With new mandates from the State of CA, the Town is hyper-focused on getting residential housing built. As recently as the last few months, even commercially zoned land has been rezoned to ‘mixed-use’ to allow for residential development.

In my recent meeting with Moraga Planning Director Afshan Hamid, we discussed much of what I’ve just summarized. It was our first formal conversation related to the substantial development of a sports field in town, but it has been part of a multi-year history of Ballplayers trying to create new youth recreational opportunities.

Starting with the infamous ‘tent’ before Director Hamid was a Town employee, where we attempted to operate a 10,000 sq/ft temporary structure that was to host 8 batting cages for the winter. It’s a long story, maybe for another time, but ultimately the cages never operated, our business took a $25,000 hit, and somehow we kept moving forward.

The batting cage tent was up over the holidays in 2019 and into January 2020, so soon after the dust settled from this fallout, we were hit with another blow… Covid (ever heard of it? 😂). We quickly pivoted to remote and virtual workouts and private lessons, and then took our whole operation to Rancho Laguna park in Moraga, where we rented the park from 9-5 all summer long and hosted outdoor camps and baseball practices from sun up to sun down! It was a huge success and we had incredibly positive feedback from families for providing outdoor physical and social opportunities for kids in the community.

The dog park was great, but it got me thinking about how to build a field of our own, with artificial turf and without dog poop and gopher holes! So the concept for Ballplayer Field was born and I was right back at Town offices requesting a permit for another temporary use (at the same site as the previous tent). I wanted to have something outdoors that we could continue to use while Covid showed no signs of allowing us back to our normal operation, but also not spend a fortune and take out a huge loan, so around August 2020, Ballplayer Field was born. The town planning department and planning commission approved the plan for an initial 6 month term.

While operating our field and seeing the demand it created, I continued to have conversations around how to build a more substantial, legitimate field. I wanted (and still do) to expand on the concept in it’s existing location, but at the exact same time, the Town was changing zoning for all undeveloped parcels near the Moraga Center to mixed use - which makes it more difficult to have a commercial use. So I’ve been stuck in limbo trying to maximize the temporary use of Ballplayer Field, while also exploring all avenues of creating a permanent solution.

As it stands now, after 2.5 years of utilizing the field through 3 extensions of the original permit (and over $17,000 in application and attorney fees paid to the Town), Ballplayer Field is set to go away at the end of October 2023 unless something changes. I’m now at a point of determining next steps, which is what prompted the meeting in the first place.

Over the next few months, I’ll be juggling these opportunities:

Have conversations with Town Council members and Planning staff and commissioners about the potential to build a sports field as part of a new residential development in town
Aim to work with Moraga School District, residents, board and committee members, and nonprofit sports clubs regarding the potential to improve fields and install artificial turf at any of the Elementary school sites or JM
Discuss the potential of continuing to use Ballplayer Field until any of the above options come to fruition, or there is any other development approved at it’s site.

Clearly it’s a long, windy, and expensive road to get a sports field or recreation facility built in town… but naive or not, I hold onto the thought that ‘If it were easy, someone would have done it by now!’. I remain committed to turning over every rock - and I know I’ll continue to need and ask for help along the way!