Centennial’s half-year ban on new outdoor pickleball courts hasn’t been in effect for even a month and already there’s pushback from folks crazy about a sport that’s been growing like mad in Colorado.
Jane Robbins, who serves as the pickleball manager at the Homestead in the Willows neighborhood in Centennial, said she is “disappointed and frustrated” by the city’s decision to temporarily halt the establishment of new outdoor courts within 500 feet of homes so that it can study noise impacts associated with the game.
The city’s emergency moratorium, passed during a well-attended March 21 city council meeting and scheduled to expire at the end of September, scuttled plans this spring that Robbins and her pickleball-playing compatriots had to paint permanent lines for two courts on the hardtop of an existing tennis court in their neighborhood.
A contractor had been lined up to do the work.
They’ve been using painter’s tape to temporarily mark the dimensions of a pickleball court, where opponents face off with paddles and smack a perforated plastic ball over a net. The moratorium will allow Robbins and her neighbors to continue laying out their makeshift courts, which can take up to 30 minutes to create and result in a giant ball of tape at game’s end.
“I’m not aware of any of my neighbors lodging complaints with the (homeowner association) board,” said 70-year-old Robbins, who plays the game twice a week.
Christopher Evans, another pickleball enthusiast who serves as president of the Homestead in the Willows HOA, said he hasn’t heard a word from neighbors about the occasional pickleball contests that take place next to the HOA clubhouse on East Geddes Avenue. And according to testimony from a city official at last month’s council meeting, neither has Centennial — not from neighbors near the two permanent outdoor courts or the half dozen temporary courts in the city.
“We’re trying to prevent the noise issue from becoming an issue in the city,” economic development director Neil Marciniak said before the moratorium passed.
Evans, an attorney, said Centennial is speculatively and improperly exercising its police powers to control an activity that has yet to produce a problem. He’s considering taking legal action.
“They took an extraordinary measure to pass a moratorium to study a possible future problem,” he said. “It’s not a rationale (for action) — a rationale has to be a present problem.”
Centennial city attorney Robert Widner disagrees that the city’s measure constitutes overreach, saying the city “is legally empowered to temporarily delay a land use or activity to avoid or manage the potential for harm to the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”
“Complaints, and lawsuits or threats of lawsuits, have been reported in other communities concerning pickleball noise,” he said. “The city of Denver’s recent experience in closing courts due to noise impacts is highly relevant. Centennial currently has few regulations to address any specific impacts from pickleball. Under these circumstances and experiences, proactive measures are justified and wise.”
On Sunday, pickleball play at Congress Park in Denver came to an end after the city determined the noise from games there had become too much for neighbors. The decision set off a flurry of activity on the Congress Park Pickleball Club Denver Facebook page, with diehard players posting pictures of games there and asking in earnest where else they could play.
“This is a bad decision from the city… we’ve all made poor decisions,” wrote one member of the club last week. “We don’t need to get loud or freak out. Let’s talk about it.”
Pickleball — a mashup of tennis and ping-pong that is easy to learn and highly social — was the fastest-growing sport in the United States for the third year running last year. In February, the Sports and Fitness Industry Association reported that nearly 9 million people played pickleball in 2022, nearly doubling 2021’s 4.8 million.
In perhaps one of the more strange and comical examples of aficionados’ dedication to the game, a 71-year-old Denver man was threatened with a felony charge last year after he used a Sharpie to draw a pickleball court on the surface of a basketball court at Denver’s Central Park Recreation Center.
The charge was later dropped.
As its popularity has grown, so have complaints about the noise its paddles and balls make when they meet. Characterized as an “impulsive sound,” the repetitive whacks emanating from pickleball courts are particularly aggravating to the human ear, according to some sonic experts.
It has led to recriminations and backbiting — and even the removal of some pickleball courts — in states from Virginia to Nevada to California. In Centennial, the city’s moratorium is also impacting bigger players in the pickleball space.
Life Time, a private athletic club in Centennial, wants to build a number of outdoor pickleball courts at its facility on East Dry Creek Road. Those plans are now on hold while the moratorium is in place, as the proposed site is within 500 feet of homes. Two representatives from the company appealed to the council last month to vote down the temporary ban.
But Marlene McKenzie, who lives near Life Time, urged Centennial’s elected leaders to pass the moratorium.
“I will have constant — 10, 12, 16 hours a day of noise,” she said. “I will no longer be able to enjoy my deck. We moved to our neighborhood because it is peaceful, because it is quiet.”
The moratorium passed 8-1.
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