Wellesley Natural Resources Commission makes tough call on mixed-use pickleball/tennis courts
With the size of the crowd packing Wednesday night’s Wellesley Natural Resources Commission meeting at town hall, you would have thought the NRC was playing for a state title or something. But that’s the purview of the defending state champion Wellesley High School girls’ tennis team at this time of year, and it was supporters of that team as well as pickleball enthusiasts that largely made up the crowd on June 4 for an NCR meeting with a lead-off agenda item of “Hunnewell Tennis/Pickleball Courts: Review and Approve Final Design.”
(See Wellesley Media’s recording of the NRC’s June 4 meeting for the full discussion on this and other matters.)
While pickleball/tennis court discussions and debates have been taking place in town for years now, this agenda item stemmed from an Annual Town Meeting vote to line two of the eight Hunnewell courts for both sports as part of an overdue court refurbishment. The issue at this point evolved into a more nuanced discussion involving the colors and shades of the courts and lines painted on them to allow for casual and competitive play.
NRC Chair Michael D’Ortenzio started the meeting on this Wellesley High School graduation week by citing parts of English teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s 2012 “You’re Not Special” commencement speech, as we first termed it. He told the crowd that while McCullough’s words were directed at students, they apply equally to us all.
“I can assure you that whatever comments and sincerely held belief that you have, we have received the exact opposite sincerely held belief over the past couple of weeks,” he said. “We have had people tell us that Town Meeting intended X and other people who told us that Town Meeting intended the opposite of X.”
As fellow NRC member Bea Bezmalinovic said later, this town body is “like a magnet for problems with sub-optimal solutions… There’s no solution that we present that’s going to make anybody extremely happy.”
Before taking public comment, and after committing that the NRC would strive to make a decision in the best interest of the overall community, D’Ortenzio read the closing lines of McCullough’s speech: “You too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing that you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life come only with the recognition that you are not special. Because everyone, and each of us, is.”
Fittingly enough, the first to make a public comment was Wellesley High student Kourosh Farboodmanesh, also a Town Meeting member. Town Meeting approved his amendment to Article 24 in April to permanently line courts seven and eight for pickleball and tennis, which would allow the tennis team to continue using all the courts during their season. He stood before the NRC to re-emphasize that “the interests of the Wellesley High School tennis teams must be protected,” and that the design plans being considered didn’t do that.
From there, the mic was volleyed between tennis parents, a high school tennis coach, high school players, as well as those who play pickleball, tennis, or both. More than a dozen people spoke during an hour’s worth of public comments, which at times got heated and tense. D’Ortenzio said during the meeting that one in five residents report playing tennis regularly and that one in five report playing pickleball regularly, so it’s clear to see why there is such interest in both sports being served on these courts.
Tennis parent John Harmon said that courts need to be U.S. Tennis Association-compliant to be used for high school practices and matches, and that the USTA offers free consulting services (plus grants) to support compliance. The initial court designs proposed would not be compliant for several reasons, including that the court surface needs to be a single color, he said. Harmon and others pointed to mixed-use courts at Wellesley Country Club that are USTA-compliant, with tennis-dominant court designs featuring blue lines—dark for tennis, and light for pickleball.
Wellesley High Boys’ Tennis Coach and Town Rec Coach Mike Sabin made a number of points, including that high school tennis “can’t be played on a pickleball court with tennis lines on the outside. At best, it could be used for practice… we wouldn’t be able to use it for matches.” (Wellesley Public Schools Supt. David Lussier and Athletic Director John Brown shared their views at the May 15 NRC meeting on the best approach to court designs from the WPS perspective.)
Pickleball proponents during public comment questioned the motivations of the Wellesley High tennis programs and warnings that players will need to be cut from teams if all eight Hunnewell courts aren’t lined primarily for tennis. “I want to remind the NRC that over the past several years the Wellesley pickleball community has willingly compromised as continuous restrictions have been put on our ability to play pickleball at town-supported resources. It’s now time for the tennis community to do this as they have have to four additional underutilized courts at Sprague,” said resident Kenna Juliani.
Another speaker, Ashley Quates, said she took offense to tennis community members after an earlier meeting accusing pickleball players of not caring about student-athletes. After sharing her family’s involvement in youth sports, she went on to argue that those on all sides need to compromise and collaborate on this issue, rather than “protect their turf.”
Following public comment, the NRC went to work on court design, even including materials. Town Engineer Dave Hickey weighed in on using post-tension concrete, mentioned by Coach Sabin and termed by Hickey as being “a bit of the gold standard” that assures little cracking for a long time. Hickey said it’s not commonly used for municipal courts and was not budgeted for or planned for with this asphalt-focused project, which has gone out for bids.
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From there, the NRC reviewed different designs, some more tennis dominant, some more pickleball dominant. D’Ortenzio said he was not a fan of the tennis-dominant Plan A supported by WPS, which would have one color for the tennis court infill and a mix of colors for overlaid pickleball courts. A “chromatic” option presented by a town consultant on the fly during the meeting displayed more similar, but still distinct, colors between tennis and pickleball courts.
NRC member Steve Park said: “I like this design. It seems to be a reasonable, but not perfect, compromise. There was a really nice note from a Town Meeting member today that said ‘Compromise is essential for a town to function as a community.'” Fellow member Jay McHale said he was in favor of this option, though would also like to see a 25% lighter version of the infill to determine if that might work better.
WPS Athletic Director Brown, dialing in from the road, added that having no infill color and just separate tennis and pickleball lines would actually be the WPS preference. “We want to make this work. We also don’t want to hurt our tennis program,” he said.
In continuing its discussion, the NRC voted in favor of the chromatic option, with D’Ortenzio saying that he didn’t think a no-infill option was a reasonable compromise between the two sports groups.
Further, the NRC agreed with a request from Brown for the commission to reach out to the USTA to see if this design would comply with its rules—rules that Brown said the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association goes by.
Note that the Hunnewell courts are set to be “taken offline” on June 16, per Town Engineer Hickey. New temporary pickleball courts have been set up at MassBay’s parking lot on Oakland Street if you’re looking for other options. Anticipate the refurbished courts being back in action by fall.