Why an Island community is tearing out their pickleball courts

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This is a CBC podcast.

Depending on where you stand,

that could be one of the most beloved or despised

sounds on Vancouver Island.

Pickleball has spread across the region in recent years,

and it has drawn players of all ages to courts

all over the island.

It is a great community.

People are friendly, yet competitive.

And so I do think that it's a lovely sport to be playing it.

But for places like North Sandwich,

that growth, and the backlash to it,

has reached a boiling point.

The determination was that the pickleball

was located in the wrong location.

Everything about it was positive in terms of the use,

and yet the mayor and council just

chose a path to close it down.

Hi there, I'm Catherine Marlow, and this is Vancouver Island.

It is a podcast and a place where people love and love to hate

Pickleball.

Joining me this week to talk about it is Emma Jean.

She works with me on the podcast.

Hello Emma.

Hey Catherine.

Now this court we're referring to specifically

in North Sandwich is one that you're sort of familiar with.

Yeah, well, I'm not a Pickleballer myself,

but I do have some ties to North Sandwich,

so I find myself there sometimes.

And this past Christmas, I was walking

around beautiful rural Wayne Road with one of my friends,

and if you don't know it's full of fields and farmland

and trees, it's close to the ocean, it's beautiful.

And we came across this massive fence Pickleball court,

and it was sitting empty with a padlock on the gate.

And well, I knew that the court had been closed,

but I hadn't seen it in person.

And to see it sitting vacant like this in an active,

lively community like North Sandwich,

it really struck me as this sort of bizarre image.

It was like the court was in like a weird time out

or something like that.

Like it got put in a closet and told to think about

what it was doing or something like that.

Exactly.

Now I remember when this story broke and was burbling,

it's been a while then that these courts have been closed, right?

Yeah, that's right, it's not new.

It's been sitting locked up like this for almost two years.

That's when North Sandwich Council decided that

after some noise complaints from neighbors,

it should be indefinitely closed.

And this week, it's being torn out of the ground.

Okay, so the timeout is over,

but in a very final way.

Exactly, permanent timeout, removed from existence.

Pretty dramatic.

And you know, it's been really disappointing for a lot of folks.

You heard that in the intro from Frank G.

And I also heard that from Brian Harrigan.

He's a board member with the Victoria Regional Pickable

Association.

Have a listen.

It's obviously disappointing and frustrating.

You know, there are other municipalities,

are most many municipalities in the area

and on the peninsula are taking an opposite view.

And they're working at ways to expand Pickable

and work with the community to make

recreational facilities more available.

I mean, it's kind of tough to comprehend.

This was a fully paid for with taxpayers money, popular activity

that they have essentially torn out.

It's sad and it's frustrating.

Friendships got made, bonds got made.

You know, and I mean, that people are still people, right?

They'll find each other eventually.

But it's been a major disruption in people's lives.

So it's not like there was an interest in the court.

Brian mentioned the financial toll of the project.

And it was estimated to be about $150,000 to $200,000

when it was developed back in 2017.

And as part of the plan to redevelop the area,

North Sandwich will be building a covered picnic table area.

Okay, so what is North Sandwich Council saying now

that this is finally happening?

Well, we wanted to hear directly from the source, right?

So we reached out to Peter Jones.

He's the mayor of North Sandwich

and was a major force in getting the courts closed

in the first place.

He spoke to my colleague Gregor Karghi earlier this week.

So why did tearing up the Pickable Courts

seem like the best option for North Sandwich?

The opinion of the majority of council

was having major major discussions

over an extended period of time with the neighborhood,

which is the residents that are in the area,

that the determination was that the Pickable

was located in the wrong location.

And that's because of the noise.

And particularly with the noise,

it's not just the decibels, but it's the frequency.

And it's the frequency that causes the problem.

So my task, three of my councillors,

to do a lot of research and also part of the research

was the same as myself, sitting down with residents,

meeting with residents and talking with residents

and finding out what the problems are.

One of the problems we found was that when the Pickable

ball courts were initially installed,

there was no consultation with the neighbors.

And that became evident from everyone that we spoke to

in that particular area.

And myself as an example, I spoke with over 25 residents

that were having problems with the noise

from the Pickable ball courts.

And as you say, it was the repetition of the noise,

not just the pitch or the tone,

but the fact that it just kept going

repetitively back and forth.

In the summer, what was happening around

is that the Pickable ball flows from around the CRD.

We were showing up at seven o'clock to start playing

and continue to play until upwards of 10 o'clock at night.

Oh, I see.

So there was no leth up in the noise.

Now, one can take care of the decibels,

and that's what they did at Kenaban Park in Oak Bay.

But unfortunately, has no effect whatsoever on the hurts,

which is the frequency that causes the problem.

The only thing that stops the frequency

is something natural, such as a berm.

And the berm would have to be basically 16 to 20 feet high

if it's van made.

Heavily forested forest.

When you look in Vancouver, as an example,

where they can put these outdoor courts close to

high-rise condo buildings or rental buildings

is heavy structured condos, which is concrete.

Which is concrete.

So all the reports that we've read are suggesting,

this is from down in the States,

which is now being studied extensively,

is that you shouldn't have these open door courts

in a flat area within a thousand feet of residents.

And to date, there is no solution to the frequency problem.

But there are a lot of people in the United States,

the engineers, universities, researching to find out

how do we protect against this.

Okay, all but in for a moment,

we looked into whether the mayor's claim is true

that it isn't possible to effectively manage

the frequencies produced by pickleballs.

Yeah, and the answer seems to be that it's complicated,

that there is no one answer.

And whether or not something works,

quote unquote to speak, is really subjective.

Of course.

So there's varying degrees of how effective it can be

for limiting how sound frequencies travel

and how human ears hear it.

And NorSandwich staff documents themselves

describe the success of these options

for pickleball noise mitigation

as quote undetermined, very mysterious.

Okay.

Anyways, let's get back to Gregor and the mayor.

So what happens to the space now, Mayor Jones?

Well, what was the always intent for Wayne Park,

which is a heritage neighborhood park?

Was there to be used by the neighborhood residents

and anyone else that wishes to come there?

Obviously, there's tennis courts

at the other end of Wayne Park,

which have not been a problem.

And again, that's because it's a different sport.

Once the death of those are similar to pickleball,

the hood isn't.

So the visits of the park now,

which is going on is that it's going to be

as a neighborhood park,

it's going to be for all residents used

for kids to use, for seniors to use,

for adults to be used, and multi-use.

We did ask the mayor of councils

considering setting up pickleball courts somewhere else instead.

He said that they thought about moving them

to a park near the highway,

but that the players he spoke to didn't really like that either.

And instead, councils asked the capital regional district

to consider building an indoor facility

for NorSandwich, Central Sandwich and Sydney.

The response to that is yet to be seen.

Okay, so Emma, this is looking at NorSandwich,

but it's not the only community

in around Vancouver Island that has seen pickleball backlash.

No, and far from it, the past few years

have seen complaints of courts across our listening region.

Pickleball was banned from top park in Victoria

and was moved across the city to a different court.

And as he heard from the mayor of NorSandwich,

Oak Bay managed their own noise complaints

in Canarvan Park by upgrading courts

with a sort of sound muffling material.

And the Supreme Court of BC found in 2023

that a group of tennis players weren't being, quote,

oppressed for having to share

with their community center court with pickleballers

on main island.

It is surprising that we have on more than one occasion,

either heard of pickleball going to court

or people threatening to take pickleball to court

and not like the court that you plan,

but the building with the judges in the paperwork.

Yeah, exactly, a surprisingly litigious sport.

And it's a sport that seems to draw haters

wherever it goes, apparently.

But it also draws some really devoted players,

players who would still be writing into NorSandwich council

for these courts two years after it closed.

To hear why it draws this sort of love and devotion,

I went down to GR Perk's Recreation Center in Sanwich,

and I spoke to the kitchenettes.

They described themselves as a group of gals

that meet weekly to play pickleball,

and they had some thoughts on why people care

so much about this sport,

and where they see it going from here.

So I'm in Perk Serena,

and we are playing pickleball for our regular Tuesday,

afternoon pickleball.

And what was your journey to getting into pickleball?

What about the sport appealed to you?

Well, I used to play racquetball a long, long time ago.

So I like racquet sports,

and then I retired, and I like the people in it,

and I like the exercise.

Yeah, and tell me what the group that you're with today.

This seems like a really great group of folks.

This is an excellent group of folks,

because they're all really good pickleball players,

and I'm not as good as them, so my game gets better.

But they're not so far advanced that I just stand there.

So I love this group.

It's a fabulous group.

You know, it seems like all in Vancouver Island,

in particular, it's quite popular.

Why do you think it's had such resonance with folks?

Well, probably because it seems like

where people start playing pickleball is when they retire,

and a lot of people come to Victoria

and Vancouver Island to retire.

And so it just seems like a very natural fit.

However, my understanding is that more younger people

are getting into it,

so playing night times in weekends,

and I think it's kind of reviving the game even more.

Norse Natch is taking out their pickleball court

after much debate over several years,

and uptown is their sort of temporary pickleball pop-up

courts are coming to a close.

How do you feel about your ability to find places to play pickleball

in greater Victoria?

Do you feel that there's sort of a consistent base

for you to play?

Well, you know, the court's kind of come and go, right?

So there's, you know, they're building more courts

and they're getting rid of some courts.

It's always sad when they're getting rid of them

because the sport itself is growing so high.

But I think that there's a strong community for pickleball

that will enable that growth to keep on happening

and put pressure on the communities

to provide spots for people to play.

Why do you think that there's been this sort of pushback

against it from neighboring folks?

Well, I think the noise factor is, I guess,

the biggest thing they don't.

But, you know, there is, you can do things against about that

by starting outside of early hours and late hours

and maybe having the softer paddles

that don't make as much noise.

You know, tennis, because they play on such a bigger court

and they're far apart from each other,

they also don't have the noise, they don't cheer

and socialize like pickleball players do when we're playing.

Another noise people don't like,

but that's just people having fun.

Where do you see pickleball going here from here?

Oh, I think it's gonna continue

with so many young people getting into it.

It's just gonna continue as a popular sport.

Last year at Beacon Hill, there were grandparents

bringing their grandchildren to play.

Anytime we play, if there's a tennis court nearby,

the pickleball courts are all full,

the tennis courts aren't.

Maybe they'll have to take over some of the tennis courts,

they can put like four courts on one tennis court

and have more people playing.

You're optimistic about the future of the sport,

even though you're seeing these sort of closures?

Absolutely, like because more and more people want to play.

And again, with the younger folks coming in

and wanting to play, that'll put more pressure

to make sure there's enough space to play.

Because it's a fabulous game, you know,

it's a nice game in that you can pick up a racket

and you've got some sense of a racket ball coordination,

then you can start playing

and you can start rigging on strategy and getting better.

That was Cindy and Gabby, members of the Kitchenettes

pickleball group.

I love their names so much.

Isn't it adorable, I love it.

And they were super optimistic, you know, about their game,

but also what the new pickleball facilities

that keep opening across Creative Victoria and Vancouver Island,

although for right now, Norse Ange is not one of those places.

Yes, and maybe in the future,

we will be covering a story about a 12-quart tournament

facility on the Sandwich Peninsula.

But for now, that is not yet the case.

That day is not today, but you know,

I look forward to the one when we can talk about it.

All right, thanks, Emma.

Thanks, Catherine.

And thank you to everyone for listening to this week's episode.

It was produced by Emma Jean, hosted by me, Catherine Marlow.

And hey, if you have a pickleball lover

or a pickleball hater in your life,

why not take a moment to share this episode with them?

Thank you for doing that.

We will be back next week.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.