Pickleball needs to make room for other park activities

We would like to call your attention to the article in the April 13 issue of the Longboat Observer, regarding the ongoing pickleball demands, “Pickleball raises commission concern.” The fourth paragraph in the article on Page 5, makes the case for those of us who do not play pickleball but use the park for tennis, exercise classes, the dog park and water sports, as well as the children’s play area. 

The paragraph in question states, “The park currently has five courts available, allowing for a maximum of 20 people to play the sport at any given time. In February, resident Dan Levine told commissioners that more than 40 people are waiting to play on one court.” The math is simple, if 60 pickleball players are on the courts playing or waiting, and there are only 52 parking spaces at the park, then there are no spaces available for other activities. 

The town has since installed six more spaces on the side of the property by Ace Hardware, bringing the total of the available parking spots to 58, which includes designated spaces. That is still not enough to accommodate everyone at the park at the same time. The exercise classes, of which there are two every morning, five days a week, pay a small fee to use the clubhouse, plus a class fee to the instructor who returns a part of her fee to the town. Oftentimes, neither class participants, nor their instructors can find parking. 

The issue for the town is trying to figure out how everyone can share in the amenities at the park. The commission has proposed possible solutions such as a scheduling app, to reduce the crowd size, and a fee for booking a court for a certain period of time. Some pickleball courts in Sarasota are currently going to a fee system for a defined period of time. Arlington has a registration/fee-based system as do many other towns all over the country. Some towns, like Darien Court, use the reservation system to permit play for residents only. These suggestions were rejected by the pickleball group. 

They were asked by the Town Commission to suggest ways that everyone could share in Bayfront Park. None were forthcoming. The explanation given was that pickleball is a social event and many people come to spend an entire morning there, socializing between playing. Their answer was to convert the final tennis court to pickleball, look at parking under the clubhouse, and be prepared for more players next season. 

If Bayfront Park could be expanded, adding more pickleball courts might be a possibility. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be enough space in this recently revamped community park of roughly 3 acres to expand and create more pickleball courts and parking to accommodate them. The Town Commission is considering converting the last tennis court to pickleball — effectively making recreational tennis players who may come to the courts when grandkids and other families visit, use the public courts. This makes no sense! Town Commission is avoiding charging nonresidents to play pickleball but making residents who want to engage in some friendly tennis with their visitors pay to do so at the public courts! 

Prior to the advent of pickleball, Bayfront Park was able to accommodate all of the other activities that took place at the park and provide adequate parking. So, what are the solutions?

As pickleball courts are not hard to construct, perhaps some other spot can be found on the island for dedicated pickleball courts. Having their own pickleball park would allow the players to come and go when they please and socialize as long as they want, without preventing the remainder of the community from enjoying the amenities they use at Bayfront Park. If this is not a solution, then the fair way of proceeding is to create an online reservation system to minimize the number of people who show up at one time, and charge a fee to maintain the courts. 

Half the current tennis courts should be left for tennis players, who were there first and are being displaced, and the other half could be for the pickleball players. We hope that an equitable solution can be reached before next season so that we don’t spend another six months writing letters and attending meetings to resolve a problem that other communities all over the country have already adopted in their towns. 

— The Bayfront Yogis, Longboat Key