EMERSON—Local enthusiasts of America’s fastest-growing sport now find themselves in a pickle.
After moving to look at potential sites for four new pickleball courts recently, the Borough Council on Nov. 1 decided to drop its pursuit of pickleball, agreeing with residents who turned out to vocally oppose the amenity, eyed near their homes.
Only six weeks after giving a unanimous thumbs up to the borough engineer to investigate installing two pickleball courts at Longview and Sunset parks, the Borough Council unanimously said Nov. 1 that the courts will not be built in borough parks. It’s a win for park neighbors who complained about anticipated noise, traffic, and an alleged lower quality of life and property value.
USA Pickeball says pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the United States, with almost five million “picklers” and counting, and enthusiasts nearly doubling since 2014.
Following a 35-minute discussion, where nine of 10 residents speaking opposed installing the courts on parks near their homes, Mayor Danielle Di Paola polled council members, asking “Do you want to put pickleball?”
Each council member said no. Councilman Brian Gordon — who had asked residents opposed to the courts for alternative sites to consider and at one point noted that parks were “for everybody” — was the last to be asked.
DiPaola said, “There are no plans to put a pickleball court in Emerson.”
USA Pickleball champions “A fun sport that combines many elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong” that’s played both indoors or outdoors on a badminton-sized court and a slightly modified tennis net, with a paddle and a plastic ball with holes, as doubles or singles, and enjoyed by all ages and skill levels
At the Sept. 20 council meeting, the council voted via consensus for preliminary engineering studies on pickleball courts at the two parks. DiPaola said then that she and DPW superintendent Perry Solimando had visited several parks and taken measurements to determine where courts could be installed.]
At the September meeting, according to official minutes, DiPaola said that the borough had fielded “many calls” asking if there were pickleball courts in town and that administrator Rob Hermansen had recommended installing such courts in town years ago, noting the game’s rising popularity.
DiPaola said T-Mobile had given the borough a $50,000 grant for parks improvement, which led to the council voting for a feasibility study on placing pickleball courts.
Resident Ellen Feld suggested that players could find indoor facilities to play, or that possibly empty tennis courts behind Pascack Valley Hospital on Old Hook Road, part of Hackensack Meridian Health Network, might be converted. She said she thought maybe the county owned those courts.
Elizabeth Billings, the only pickleball enthusiast who spoke, asked if the council could reach out to the school district to let it know of residents’ interest in resurfacing some of the five tennis courts at Emerson Junior-Senior High School for the purpose. She said the high school tennis courts, behind a wooded buffer off of Main Street, on the property’s east side, were in “rough shape.”
Pressed by Billings on whether borough pickleball courts were a “dead issue,” DiPaola said, “At this time we don’t have a plan to build” a local court.
DiPaola said that Billings could ask administrator Rob Hermansen to put the issue on a future agenda for discussion.
Most residents who opposed the courts cited the alleged loud pop-pop-pop drumbeat from a hard plastic ball hitting paddles and asphalt as the primary reason to prohibit the courts from parks near them.
Ross Avenue resident Elizabeth Spaeth said pickleball courts yield “continuous noise” and defined noise as “any sound that is unwanted.” She said that the noise that paddles and balls being hit makes “carries a long way” and affects nearby residents’ quality of life.
Some pickleball courts have included noise-reducing fabric around the fencing on the courts’ perimeter, minimizing the sound from the plastic ball and paddles. The noise from pickleball courts has been a divisive issue in several towns, including Ridgewood, leading to lawsuits, angry public meetings and restricted daytime hours for pickleball.
Other efforts have been made to reduce the noise of pickleball by engineering quieter paddles and quieter balls, with some reduction in noise levels.
Ross Avenue resident Jan Brown pressed for a resolution that would restrict pickleball and said the noise from such courts “would constitute a constructive taking of the economic value of people’s homes.”\
Borough attorney John McCann disagreed, and said that the borough should not pass a resolution or ordinance that would limit local recreation options, especially as the borough pursues a variety of grant funding for rec options.
Longview Drive resident Robert Maggiulli said the park near his home was for a park and not a ballfield. He urged that pickleball courts be “placed in places that don’t affect residential areas,” noting that a pickleball court could affect his quality of life and home value.
“The planes are worse enough,” he said, referring to low-flying private jets that often fly over Pascack Valley airspace on the way to Teterboro Airport. He asked how many council members wanted to have “that sound in your backyard consistently.”
However, over the last two years, the county Open Space Trust Fund has provided partial funding for pickleball courts in many Bergen County towns, including the Township of River Vale. The township proposed four pickleball courts, now under construction, at Mark Lane Athletic Complex.
Several residents also mentioned that local parks needed upgrades and improvements, urging the council to use grant funds to add playgrounds for young children or passive recreation, such as workout stations.