South Burlington City Council bounces pickleball solutions

This story by Liberty Darr was first published in the Other Paper on July 25.

The South Burlington City Council is looking to mediate a pickleball debate at Szymanski Park that has some residents saying their quality of life is deteriorating due to the incessant noise and traffic congestion associated with the sport’s growing popularity.

With a petition circulating in the city demanding that pickleball courts be removed from Szymanski Park and relocated to Dorset Street, pickleball advocates showed up in droves to the council meeting last week to show their support for the sport with some looking for ways to work with the city on solutions to keep them playing.

Jovanna Guerino, who spearheaded the petition, says her quality of life has been drastically eroded by what she calls an “incessant and psychologically torturous, ‘pop-pop-pop’” sound emanating from pickleball players at Szymanski Park at all hours of the day, or at least until 10 p.m. when the park lights shut off.

But Laura Weinstein describes this sound as a “happy sound.” She said that she and her husband bought housing in the area specifically for the pickleball courts, which are within walking distance.

“People who play are extremely happy people,” she said, adding that she feels terrible that the sound is annoying other residents. “It’s a very fun sport, enthusiastic. It really spews good health. I do believe it’s really for happiness.”

Chris Tudor, an ambassador for the USA Pickleball Association for northern Vermont, said he has played pickleball at Szymanski Park off and on for nearly seven years, and he has never seen the park as populated as it has been now.

“There are days there where there’s some 40 people and the parking lot only holds, what, six or seven cars,” he said.

He added that the issue of noise is a nationwide problem with the sport, but the issue at Szymanski Park is two-pronged: “One is the noise, and the other is definitely the parking.”

Another pickleball player, Linda Norris, said the city should look for a place to add more pickleball courts due to the high interest in the sport, which might alleviate the current stress on Andrew’s Avenue.

The city turned one tennis court into four pickleball courts in the fall of 2022, Adam Matth, the city’s director of recreation and parks said. The project cost roughly $20,000 to build, but that project was just one of a dozen projects in the recreation department’s capital improvement plan, which also included repaving the basketball court and remaining tennis court that year.

Matth said at last week’s meeting that it is possible that the recreation department could begin to look at other pickleball courts across the city through the park department’s master plan, which is set to roll out this summer.

As far as traffic and speed, South Burlington police chief Shawn Burke said that in response to resident complaints, the department began compiling data in 2023 with an in-person traffic safety officer monitoring the neighborhood. According to police data, “the traffic safety officer did not identify any violations that would warrant action,” he said.

Fast forward to 2024, and the complaints persisted in the neighborhood. The department this time deployed a speed trailer with its own data capture. According to a report, there was high compliance with the posted 25-mile-per-hour speed limit. From mid-May to late-May when the speed trailer was in operation, 13.72 miles per hour was the average speed of passing cars.

“When you sit and monitor speed, especially in a residential neighborhood such as Andrews Avenue, would 25 miles per hour look quick? It does,” Burke said. “But it is lawful. I think that the takeaway here is that the design of the city street is what it was engineered to be whenever that neighborhood was built. It is appropriately posted at 25 miles per hour. From a traffic enforcement perspective, there are no violations that would warrant dedicated enforcement or more directed patrol.”

While the city council made no decision last week, it directed city staff to study potential solutions like sound mitigation mats, decibel measurements, a change of hours, and when to turn the park’s lights out.

Recommendations are expected to come before the city council at its Aug. 5 meeting.

“I think the notion that the pickleball community needs to maybe step up and look at what they can do to mitigate their impact, and say, ‘We care about the neighbors around here, and we’re going to do what we can to make sure that we’re not disturbing them,’ is important,” council member Laurie Smith said. “I really want everybody to enjoy their sports, but I also want everybody to be able to enjoy their lives.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: South Burlington City Council bounces pickleball solutions .