Longboat revisits hearing for pickleball project

The Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board is gearing up to field a June 21 hearing regarding a plan to build four pickleball courts at the Longboat Key Club, adjacent to its Harbourside Tennis Gardens.

The court proposal was unanimously recommended to the Town Commission for approval back in April, but residents of the neighboring Winding Oaks community raised objections about the potential noise produced by the new courts.

The residents also said they had not been notified of the April meeting in time to attend, and town officials found that the notices had indeed arrived too late in many cases.

The rescheduled hearing was requested by attorney Edward Willner of the Sarasota firm of Lobeck and Hanson on behalf of the Winding Oaks residents at the Planning and Zoning Board’s May 17 meeting.

"Our members do have concerns about the proposed development and would like to be heard at the public hearing, and so we’re requesting that since they were not notified in an appropriate way and had no opportunity to be heard that the public hearing be reopened before the process goes any further,'' Willner told P&Z board members at the May 17 meeting.

Representatives of the Longboat Key Club did not immediately return a request for comment.

Allen Parsons, Longboat Key’s director of planning, zoning and building, said in May that if the Planning and Zoning Board approves the project, the earliest it could head to the Town Commission for consideration is September.