Town Officials Hold Court On Pickleball

ORLEANS – Mark Berson sees pickleball growing all over the country, but not in Orleans.

“I think we’re significantly deficient in providing the fastest growing recreational activity in the United States, and maybe the world,” Berson, an Orleans resident who has been playing pickleball for the past two years, told the select board Sept. 10.

As pickleball continues to grow in popularity, so too has the demand for more courts in town. David Jacobson told the board during the meeting’s public comment period that all one has to do is visit the town’s existing pickleball courts on Eldredge Park Way to see how popular the sport has become locally.

“You can barely call it exercise anymore. You play a game, and then you’ve got to wait another 20 minutes to get on,” he said.

But local officials earlier this month entertained a lengthy discussion about how to balance interest in the sport with the town’s broader recreational needs.

The select board on Sept. 10 unanimously voted to support and place on the warrant for next month’s special town meeting two articles, including one to allocate $100,000 for “pickleball development” in town. A second article will seek an additional $850,000 to support “recreational facilities and infrastructure,” including costs related to design, repairs, engineering and construction. Both requests would be funded through free cash if approved.

The decision to move forward with two separate articles went against the recommendation of the town’s recreation advisory committee, which voted the night before to recommend that the two articles be consolidated. But pickleball in Orleans has both its supporters and its opponents, and some select board members worried that lumping the two articles together could compromise efforts to more broadly fund recreation in town.

In May, an article brought forward by the advisory committee to study the potential use of town property on Bay Ridge Lane for additional pickleball courts failed with voters. Knowing that, Andrea Reed of the select board said she had concerns about putting forward one article on Oct. 28.

“We hear the demand for pickleball, but many of us have been advocating for an audience that doesn’t vote yet, which is kids in this community, for a lot longer,” she said. “And being asked to choose between Peter and Paul in effect is not really the spirit or value of this community.”

Town Manager Kim Newman agreed, saying that putting pickleball in with an article to more broadly fund recreational needs could put voters in a position of having to choose one or the other.

“I think there are a lot of people that want pickleball and I think there are a lot of people who don’t want pickleball, and I don’t want to see the rest of the recreational needs get sort of grouped in with that,” she said.

The $100,000, if approved, would help the town create space for more pickleball courts in the short term while the town works toward a longer term recreational plan. The advisory committee in April presented a multi-phased field study to the select board laying out a vision for revitalizing field space on Eldredge Park Way.

Recreation Director Tom DeSiervo and Public Works Director Rich Waldo on Sept. 10 put before the select board a list of potential sites in town that could accommodate pickleball infrastructure in the short term. DeSiervo said he has received quotes putting the cost of creating 10 courts at approximately $450,000.

A site across from town hall and behind the town hall annex that is currently used for sewer equipment storage could fit six courts for about $280,000, DeSiervo said. Another option could be to resurface and reline existing tennis courts on Eldredge Park Way for dual use as pickleball courts.

Other sites were determined to be less feasible, including land at 10 Overland Way that lacks space for parking and is located in a flood zone.

“So that means you’re digging downward as well,” DeSiervo  said. “So that doesn’t work.” Land identified behind the town’s wastewater treatment facility on Overland Way will be needed to accommodate future sewer work, Waldo said, while land just beyond the treatment facility could accommodate 10 courts with some additional work at a “conservative” cost of $1.2 million, DeSiervo said.

The Bay Ridge Lane property, which currently houses the town’s former public works headquarters, was also discussed as an option. But the site presents a number of challenges, Waldo said. While the site could accommodate 10 courts with fencing and parking for about $450,000, additional work in the way of regrading, tree removal, stormwater adjustments, removal of storage and the demolition of an existing office building would also be required, he said. The town also would need to find another place for sewer equipment to be staged and to pay for its relocation.

Altogether, Waldo estimated the cost of creating courts at Bay Ridge Lane to be about $1.2 million.

“At the end of the day, this site could be developed for pickleball courts, but there’s some logistics that would need to be worked out in order to make this happen,” he said.

Mefford Runyon of the select board asked what alternatives might exist for the equipment currently staged on Bay Ridge Lane. Waldo said space at the treatment facility could be looked at, as well as land at the transfer station near the salt shed, the Nauset Beach parking lot and possibly Nickerson State Park with permission from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Runyon said cold storage that’s currently housed on the property will need to be moved eventually, and that paying to do it is simply a matter of when. 

Newman said that stabilization funds could be used to relocate the sewer equipment elsewhere. But some on the board had reservations about using the site, especially given how much it fits in with the town’s ongoing sewering efforts.

“I’m really cautious about opening that site up beyond” the intended uses, said select board member Kevin Galligan.

Available town-owned land for use in creating additional courts is limited. What’s more, an appropriate site needs to be far enough away from residential areas so as to mitigate noise for nearby residents. 

To that end, Eldredge Park could offer space for courts in a largely non-residential area. But the recreation committee envisioned situating courts elsewhere so that Eldredge Park could be used for youth recreation in a centralized location.

Parking at Eldredge Park is also an issue that would need to be addressed, said select board chair Mark Mathison.

“I have not heard any reference to the parking issues in any of the conversations,” he said. “I haven’t been at the rec meetings and whatnot, but that’s something that I have hanging over my head here.” Murphy said the second phase of the field study would address additional parking that wraps around the neighboring Nauset school administration building.

Newman said short of finding town land, the town could try and negotiate a lease of private property for temporary courts. But without a plan of action for creating the new courts, she said the recommended $450,000 doesn’t do the town or voters much good.

“I don’t see a dollar amount you could approve that could get you to that purpose,” she said.

Instead, DeSiervo said the existing courts on Eldredge Park Way could be resurfaced and restriped to allow for both tennis and pickleball use for $100,000. Select board members said they were comfortable moving ahead with the smaller figure in October.

“Our placing this article at least allows us to gauge in a town meeting setting the support [for pickleball],” Reed said. 

Timm Gould of the recreation advisory committee said he believes a pickleball article will fare better this fall. He said questions and concerns that surrounded the defeated article from May have largely been addressed.

“I think if more education or explanation was forthcoming, I think the voters would go for it,” he said.

The second article seeking the additional $850,000 for broader recreational needs also won the board’s support. DeSiervo said after the meeting that the funding would be used to hire a consultant to evaluate what is feasible at Eldredge Park for the first phase of the field study and potentially break ground.

Newman said the town needs a consistent stream of funding for recreation outside of the Community Preservation Act, through which the town has helped finance a number of initiatives. But the town is limited in how it can use that CPA funding, she said, noting it cannot be used for things such as maintenance. 

Michael Herman of the select board voiced his support for moving forward with the separate article for the $850,000, pointing to the effort that the town has made in recent years to get recreation in town back on track.

“I think we have to put recreation first,” he said. “Recreation is inclusive with pickleball, but we can’t forget what’s been going on with recreation for the last 10 years.”

“My department and everybody in the town, we’re trying the best we can to make everybody happy and find a solution that works best for the whole community,” DeSiervo said.