Residents Push Back on 20-Acre Synthetic Turf Plan at Crocker Amazon Park

When San Francisco's parks department announced a $45 million partnership with the Giants to overhaul Crocker Amazon Park in 2025, officials expected gratitude. Instead, they got Keep Crocker Real.

The community group brought its opposition to SF Giants FanFest last Saturday, staging a protest at 11 a.m. while continuing its regular Sunday rallies near the grove of trees slated for removal. The plan, developed jointly by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department and the Giants Community Fund with costs split evenly, calls for installing roughly 20 acres of synthetic turf to create five new baseball diamonds, bumping the total number of fields from five to six. One natural grass field would remain.

The price tag is steep, and so is the ecological cost. The renovation requires removing 128 trees along the pedestrian promenade to accommodate new infrastructure and drainage, disrupting what opponents describe as a vital green corridor. The plan calls for planting two trees for every one removed, but that math has done little to satisfy critics who note that playgrounds renovated in San Francisco over the past 10 to 15 years still lack meaningful shade because replacement trees remain young.

Wildlife displacement during construction is an additional concern raised by Keep Crocker Real, as is the broader health debate over artificial turf materials. Opponents have pointed to crumb rubber, a tire-derived infill used in older synthetic fields, calling it toxic waste requiring specialized disposal.

Rec and Parks spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton pushed back directly on the crumb rubber argument. "This is not the old turf that's made with crumb rubber infill. These are state-of-the-art. We use natural cork and sand infill. We test for PFAS and other chemicals. We work closely with environmental agencies on every installation," she said. Aparton also cited recurring field closures as justification for the switch, noting that grass fields were shut down for roughly half of spring last year due to rain. "It meant canceled games. It meant lost practices, and it meant families scrambling," she said. Gopher holes compound the problem, with soggy turf routinely keeping the diamonds dark for more than a month during wet spring months.

Beyond the fields, the project includes batting cages, new restrooms, two dog parks on natural ground, an additional picnic area, new pathways, a public gathering space, and lighting. "This transforms it into one of the premier baseball and softball complexes in the Bay Area," Aparton said.

The city's half of the $45 million would draw from the 2020 Health and Recovery bond, but only once the plan clears approval. The Rec and Park Commission is expected to vote in the coming months, with the Board of Supervisors holding final authority. Supervisor Chyanne Chen, whose district encompasses Crocker Amazon, has been inundated with constituent messages on both sides. According to Mission Local, Chen acknowledged her inbox is flooded with emails about the dispute and that residents citywide have approached her to argue their case, but she has little control over the formal approval process.

That dynamic puts the decision squarely in front of the commission, with no middle ground on offer. The Recreation and Parks Department has not presented any version of the Crocker Amazon renovation that excludes synthetic turf, meaning a vote against artificial grass is effectively a vote against the entire rebuilding project.