The outdoor pickleball court landscape in Wellesley continues to change, with the School Committee on Tuesday voting 4-1 to disallow the popular paddle sport on four Sprague courts other than for middle school classes (see Wellesley Media recording at around the 1-hour, 2-minute mark, plus citizen comments at the start of the meeting).
Use of the Sprague courts for pickleball went into effect about four years ago as people sought COVID-safe activities. But as play ramped up there, so did noise complaints from neighbors. Similar complaints arose regarding pickleball play at Perrin Park.
Pickleball hours at Sprague and Perrin were slashed last spring. Two courts at Schofield remain available throughout the week, though the condition of those courts isn’t great.
The School Committee and other town bodies with oversight of courts in town have attempted in recent years to balance the interests of pickleball players, tennis players, and neighbors. The town paid ubiquitous consulting firm Weston & Sampson tens of thousands of dollars to conduct a study looking at where new outdoor pickleball courts might be feasible; the Morses Pond parking emerged as the only real solution, but that idea pretty much got quashed in the face of opposition from neighbors, pond users, and trail users. The town will pilot a pickleball court plan at MassBay Community College’s Oakland Street parking lot beginning later this spring, though enthusiasts of the sport have said playing on the asphalt there rather than on a true sports court surface likely won’t appeal to some older players and those with leg issues.
The main breakthrough on the pickleball front in Wellesley is the idea of permanently converting one of the Hunnewell tennis courts into several pickleball courts, a shift that would sync up with needed refurbishing of the courts. This is now the topic of an Annual Town Meeting article set for next month. The loss of a tennis court will force the high school tennis teams to do some maneuvering and concerns have been voiced about it possibly affecting team sizes.
School Committee members on Tuesday spoke of a need to balance interests in town, and ultimately Chair Linda Chow was the only dissenting vote regarding the end of pickleball at Sprague. Chow hesitated to support the shutdown now in light of the lack of a proven alternative ahead of Town Meeting. The School Committee also discussed this topic at its March 11 meeting (see Wellesley Media recording).
The pickleball shutoff at Sprague is slated to happen within a couple of weeks, allowing the Recreation Department reservation systems to be updated and for the public to be notified.
Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Commission, which met in parallel to the School Committee on March 18, had a brief pickleball courts discussion and decided to wait on voting on this topic until after Town Meeting (no vote was scheduled for Tuesday). The NRC has a decision to make about pickleball at Perrin Park, which falls under its jurisdiction. As the NRC’s Jay McHale noted, there will be a squeeze on outdoor court space over the summer, as even if the Hunnewell pickleball court plan is approved at Town Meeting, work on those courts would close them off over the summer.
One lingering question about pickleball courts is how user fees might be applied, as was discussed during the NRC session.
Even as the outdoor court changes are made, more indoor court space has emerged in Wellesley and nearby in recent months, including at the new Longfellow Wellesley Tennis & Health Club next to the Babson skating rink.
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