Building a large, commercial enterprise next to a cemetery will always raise some concern. After all, you’re talking about the potential for additional traffic and noise near the final resting place of family members or friends. It’s a highly personal matter.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that Afrim Nezaj’s proposed four-field soccer park next to Memory Gardens in Colonie is generating pushback from the cemetery’s owners and people who either own plots or are visitors to the cemetery.
While we understand their concerns, we believe these two entities can coexist as good neighbors.
The primary concern being voiced by opponents is that noise from the youth soccer games will interrupt the solemnity of funeral services at Memory Gardens. Nezaj had hired Chazen Companies to test the sound levels at a soccer complex in Rotterdam while five youth games were being played, and the recordings found the decibel levels to be below the normal level of conversation (60-65 dBs). And if that noise has to travel more than 100 feet to a gravesite, it shouldn’t be enough to interrupt a funeral service. In addition, there will not be a public address system at the fields.
Others worry about the possibility of people parking at and crossing through Memory Gardens to get to the soccer complex. To address that, Nezaj stated he will build 377 parking spaces at the complex, and he is willing to construct a fence along the border with the cemetery to prevent people from cutting through.
What about the 75-foot high light towers and the multi-use sports dome that opponents say will detract from the natural beauty of Memory Gardens’ surroundings? The land Nezaj plans to purchase is currently zoned for commercial use. If a developer bought the land and built an office park there, a series of three-story, brick-and-glass buildings has far more potential to be visually distracting than light towers and a dome?
As for the lights themselves, they shouldn’t pose a problem for Memory Gardens. These days, athletic field lights are engineered to shine directly onto the action. The amount of light pollution leaking from the fields is minimal. And generally speaking, funerals are not held in the evening. Odds are, visitors to Memory Gardens will not see the lights from the soccer complex when they are turned on for evening games.
There are always the traffic concerns. The area of Watervliet-Shaker Road where Memory Gardens is located and Nezaj wants to place his soccer complex is a tricky one, as the road narrows from four to two lanes before widening again at the intersection with New Karner Road. However, Nezaj said he plans to build his entrance at the intersection of Watervliet-Shaker and Sand Creek roads, where the roadbed is currently wide enough to have turning lanes in both directions. Also, there is a traffic light at that intersection. It would just need to have a light devoted to the soccer park entrance to properly control the traffic flow.
Beyond the light and the turning lanes, traffic around youth soccer complexes doesn’t differ much from traffic around youth baseball complexes or schools. You’ll have some busy times as parents take their children to and from the fields, but it will be staggered. And with weekday games starting around the tail end of rush hour (5:30 to 6 p.m.), it shouldn’t add too many more vehicles to that part of Colonie.
Nezaj seems willing to do what he can to address the concerns being brought up by Memory Gardens and its supporters.
“I respect what they do; they should respect what I do,” Nezaj said in a Nov. 13 article in the Colonie Spotlight.
If the soccer complex is approved, though, the Town of Colonie should hold Nezaj to his promises of being a good neighbor. After all, it’s easy to make those promises when you want something; it’s another thing to follow through.