Crown Park neighbors frustrated by ‘really loud’ pickleball courts

Following a flood of noise and livability complaints from residents who live near Crown Park’s shared-use tennis-pickleball courts, Camas city officials and parks commissioners are rethinking how they might accommodate pickleball, one of the nation’s fastest growing sports. Dozens of Crown Park neighbors have come to Camas Parks and Recreation Commission and Camas City Council meetings to voice concerns about the tennis-pickleball courts at Crown Park, which they say regularly produce noise that is, as one speaker told Camas Council members during their Sept. 3 workshop, as loud as a garbage truck backing up. “It is really loud,” one Crown Park neighbor told Camas Council members in September. “My home is about 75 feet away from the new sports court (being built at Crown Park) … I love the park, love the playground, but this is something that is on an entirely different level.” Many of the speakers concerned about the noise produced by the solid pickleball racquets — which are similar to oversized paddle-ball racquets — also said they don’t want to see the sport disappear in Camas, and have appealed to city leaders to consider moving the courts to areas of the city that are not so close to residential housing. “We’ve heard some concerns from residents that pickleball can be pretty noisy. “It is one of the fastest growing sports — and it is a Washington-born sport — so we are looking at noise mitigation,” Camas Communications Director Bryan Rachal told The Post-Record last week. The City offers shared-use tennis-pickleball courts at Crown Park and Grass Valley Park, and was planning to create more space for pickleball players at Crown Park during the park’s yearlong renovations. Instead, Camas Mayor Steve Hogan has decided to nix the pickleball portion of the sports court plan and said the new court — which is expected to be completed in 2025 — will be for basketball only. “The decision of the mayor is to halt striping of pickleball (on the new sports court) and work on noise mitigation at the current (Crown Park) pickleball court on 17th and Everett,” Rachal told Camas Parks and Recreation Commission members during their Sept. 25 meeting. The problem, Rachal added, is that Camas’ current city noise code has no maximum decibel level and doesn’t mention any sports, much less pickleball. “I don’t know if we’ll do a noise test yet,” Rachal said. “The issue with the city’s noise ordinance is that it doesn’t have a decibel level associated with it. Some cities have done sound mitigation (on pickleball courts), so we’re going to price those and get some options that might be feasible for the City and that court. … And we will look at possible pickleball courts away from residential areas. Again, and I hate to be a broken record, but everything revolves around money.” The city of Camas currently operates a shared-use model at two of its parks that allows pickleball players to use established tennis courts during certain hours of certain days. At Crown Park, for example, tennis players have exclusive use of the courts from 1 to 5 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, as well as from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays and every second and fourth Saturday of the month. Pickleball players, who must bring their own rackets and balls but who have City-provided keys to an on-site locker filled with pickleball nets, can use the Crown Park courts from 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 1 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on the first and third Saturdays of the month. The City has a similar arrangement for its Grass Valley Park courts. On a schedule posted to both courts’ entryways, the City has added a provision: “If the courts are not being used, anyone can play either pickleball or tennis. If players of both sports would like to play at the same time, and there is not enough court space for the players of both sports, the sport with priority time is permitted to play and the other players should relinquish the court(s). All remaining days, including Sunday mornings and all afternoons/evenings are open play and are first-come, first-served.” Many players say the arrangement — which began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Camas residents were finding new ways to enjoy local parks and taking up pickleball, a lower-intensity racquet sport said to have originated on Bainbridge Island near Seattle that takes up one-half of a tennis court and is known for being easier to learn and to play than tennis — is working just fine. But some residents, including one long-time Crown Park tennis player, say there are conflicts between the two groups over who is supposed to be playing on the city-owned courts. “I grew up in Camas and began playing tennis in 1960, at the age of 8. I have played on the courts each year, regularly, since then,” Camas resident Heinrich Vanderberg told Camas Parks and Recreation Commission members during the Commission’s July 31 meeting. “I live two blocks away (from Crown Park). The schedule is being completely ignored by the pickleball group. I have been confronted, threatened and told to go to Camas High School to play.” Vanderberg said the noise from the pickleball paddles is “obnoxious” and said he thinks the sport is causing substantial wear and tear to the Crown Park tennis courts. More residents turned out for the Parks and Recreation Commission’s meeting in August to voice similar complaints. One man, who said he lives across from Crown Park, said the pickleball courts are causing some neighbors distress from the constant loud noise. “It seems that a small minority’s preference is being considered over the needs of the community,” he told the Commission. “There are other areas in Camas that are not residential and could be used for development of these courts. I would urge commissioners to reconsider the location of the new court and to not add to the existing noise issues.” One woman, who also lives across from the Crown Park courts, said she has encountered people “cursing, yelling and playing music” on the pickleball courts and sometimes has trouble finding a parking spot outside her home due to the courts’ popularity. “I’m concerned Crown Park is becoming a destination,” she told Commission members in August. “It doesn’t seem that all of those who are there are treating the park in a friendly way. … There has to be some collaboration with how these courts are going to affect those who live around the park.” Another Crown Park neighbor told the Commission that the pickleball courts are “ruining the neighborhood.” “I used to listen to the owls and their mating calls. The squirrels, animals, everything is now running away,” he told the Commission in August. “You’re destroying the park. Pickleball shouldn’t be in a residential neighborhood.” Parks Commission members said during their Sept. 25 meeting that they would like to see some of the noise-mitigation options available before making any recommendations about the popular shared-use tennis-pickleball court in Crown Park. Commission chairperson Ellen Burton said she had been studying a report by the city of Lake Oswego in Oregon, which detailed the benefits of using a soundproofing product known as Acoustiblok, and noted that city of Camas officials would first need to determine if the fence around the shared-use courts inside Crown Park, which have been used as tennis courts for about 90 years, could even accommodate the weight of a sound-blocking barrier. Burton and other Commission members instructed Rachal, who is acting as the interim Parks and Recreation director now that former director Trang Lam has moved into her new position as the chief executive officer for the Port of Camas-Washougal, to look into noise mitigation products — including softer sounding paddles and balls, fencing and landscaping options — and bring more information to the Commission in November. The pickleball battles are not unique to Camas. Several cities across the nation have installed noise mitigation devices on their pickleball courts or shut the courts down after fielding noise complaints from neighbors. In March, for instance, the Irvington Club in Northeast Portland decided to close its pickleball courts after receiving noise complaints and a cease-and-desist order from one neighbor living just 15 feet from the courts. And, in 2023, Lake Oswego also opted to close its only pickleball court and look for a better location that wouldn’t offend people living nearby.

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