For more than a decade, the Belfast City Park pickleball courts have seemed to many players like the ideal place to play.
“This is the jewel,” said David Hallbert, president of Belfast Pickleball, standing at the courts on a sunny morning. “With the trees around here, and the park and the water, it’s just a lovely place.”
But after a recent complaint to the city from park neighbors over the noise pickleball makes, the sport’s future in the city is uncertain.
“We thought we’d start the summer painting the courts,” Hallbert said. “When it all exploded this spring, it really surprised everybody.”
As pickleball continues to grow in popularity, conflicts over noise have popped up in communities across the country, where some people living near courts say the rhythmic thwock of pickleball on paddle is intolerable. Belfast’s City Council will take up the issue at its next meeting on Tuesday and is already looking into relocating the pickleball courts. Meanwhile, players are hoping they won’t lose a sport that provides both exercise and community.
The issue came to a head at Belfast’s most recent City Council meeting on June 2. Mayo Street residents Lauren Valle and her husband, Alex Giblin, dramatically described how the constant noise of pickleball from the park is making their lives miserable and causing them mental and physical distress.
Valle, who has two young children, recently told the Bangor Daily News that the noise is relentless and inescapable, even with windows closed and fans running.
“We get the older people playing first thing in the morning and then we get youth playing and screaming till the last light,” she said. “We don’t get any break and it’s brutal.”
On a recent weekend, Valle was so distraught she considered checking herself into a hospital.
The couple has faced backlash after going public with their complaints, Valle said. People have been honking loudly at the pickleball court, which is adjacent to their property, and driving past the house and honking horns.
But so far, Valle and Giblin have been encouraged by the city’s response to their complaints.
“We both felt the council responded really well and heard us, which we weren’t sure was going to happen,” she said.
Valle hopes the city will take swift action.
“We hope that they’re going to limit the hours and that there’s a plan to decommission the current courts and relocate them because they’re incompatible with neighborhoods,” she said.
Hallbert has also been reassured by the city’s response to the issue.
“We’ve had some contact with them and they say, ‘No, no, pickleball is going to stay in Belfast somehow, we’re going to find a way,’” he said.
But that won’t necessarily be easy or cheap.
Potential noise mitigation measures like building barriers or asking people to play with soft paddles don’t seem to work well, Hallbert said. And the courts are public, which means Belfast Pickleball would have no way to make sure everyone follows the rules.
“We’re not the pickleball police,” he said.
Finding a new spot isn’t straightforward, either. A few years ago, Belfast Pickleball started exploring building courts elsewhere in the city to expand its playing options because the City Park courts were routinely full with 20 people waiting to play.
They looked into relocating near the YMCA, on school district property or on the parking lots at the former MBNA campus, but each option faced hurdles such as lack of support or high costs. The group also proposed expanding courts onto the lower lawn at City Park, but the City Council turned them down.
Finding a spot that is far from houses adds another layer of complexity to the task, said Brooks Hurley, a member of Belfast Pickleball who organizes the group’s tournaments.
“We don’t have a lot of choices,” he said.
It could cost more than $100,000 to build new courts, depending on the site, Hurley estimated.
“It’s one thing to lose this court,” he said. “But the other part is, can we find a space that’s adequate? What’s it going to take to prepare that space and how long is it going to take? Is there money available? Are we talking a few months? A few years?”
The idea of losing the City Park courts is “heartbreaking,” Hallbert said.
Bill Carr, another avid pickleball player, agrees. He questioned whether some of the complaints about pickleball noise are exaggerated and said it doesn’t seem just for the players to lose something that they’ve poured time and money into.
“Just having it disappear, I don’t think that’s very fair, either,” he said.
Hallbert hopes the good things pickleball brings to the community won’t get lost in the debate over noise. Seasoned players regularly teach kids and beginners to play and their tournaments raise money for charity. And a community has grown around the sport over the years.
People who never exercised now play pickleball. The sport has brought people together, helping them make friendships and fight isolation, Hallbert said.
“It’s really changed a number of our lives,” he said.