Turf war heats up in May

For the next two months, until the mass migration toward cottages and other summertime destinations, there will be regular traffic jams along Melville Avenue as parents drop off and pick up their kids from Westmount’s fastest-growing pastime. But as our young people play soccer, the very ground they tread continues to be at the centre of this year’s most notorious and best-publicized controversy—the argument over whether the City should install artificial turf on the field to preserve the surface.

The vehement opposition to the plan, as clearly articulated by members of Save the Park, embodies a litany of ecological and aesthetic concerns, while the City insists the current grass surface cannot hold up to the heavy traffic, which in turn prevents sports programs from expanding to meet the increasing demand.

Outside the city, where artificial turf has long been a feature of several playing fields without a peep of protest from residents, this controversy may seem like another petty Westmount thing—up there with parking aprons, dog runs and demergers—where non-residents tend to wonder what all the polite fuss is about.

But it is for this very reason that the turf issue is so important. Here, people actually care about their community to the point where they will not only voice their opinion but organize ad-hoc groups or circulate petitions in order to fight for a cause.

And on the evening of Wednesday, May 16, with kids’ shouts and referee whistles audible from across the park, the issue will be discussed in detail at a public meeting in Victoria Hall. The City is hosting a forum-like event which promises to be the most productive and informative to date, where people will be able to hear the various statistics and arguments supporting either side of the issue.

Both camps are being extremely reasonable, putting forth their respective arguments in a clear, logical manner, and although it is highly unlikely that the problem will be resolved that night, we are sure to come away with a better understanding of what this means to the park and the community as a whole.