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Pickleball players in Palo Alto are quick to tout the many benefits of their rapidly growing sport, chief of which is the inclusive, welcoming vibe that has made local courts at Mitchell Park such a draw for local residents and players from other communities.
But after seven years of aggressive expansion, the popular sport is now facing some growing pains — as well as a growing backlash. With pickleball players lobbying the city of Palo Alto for more court spaces to accommodate growing demand, tennis players and residents around Mitchell Park are pushing back against what they see as an intrusion of the sport, which has turned their cherished local park into a regional destination.
It’s not just in Palo Alto that pickleball has provoked controversy recently. In Mountain View, a proposal to add pickleball courts at Cuesta Park or Cuesta Annex has led to substantial debate in the community. The city of Mountain View has scheduled a public meeting on the topic from 6:30-8 p.m. on Aug. 27 at the Mountain View Community Center, 201 S. Rengstorff Ave.
Over in Palo Alto, the two camps clashed at a Tuesday meeting of the Parks and Recreation Commission, which was considering the city of Palo Alto’s latest proposal to add pickleball courts. The sport has been growing in prevalence since 2018, when Palo Alto striped three tennis courts for pickleball use on a temporary basis. The following year, the city designated one court at Mitchell Park for pickleball and striped two others so that they can be used for either sport.
Since then, Palo Alto added new courts and installed lights over the pickleball court and adopted a new policy giving pickleball players priority over tennis players at the two courts that were designated for joint use. The various policies changes mean that the city now has eight dedicated courts and seven dual-use ones, with pickleball given the priority.
But for pickleball players like David Siegel, the sport still has plenty of room to grow. Siegel, who serves as president of the Palo Alto Pickelball Club board of directors, made his case Tuesday for converging two of the four remaining tennis courts at Mitchell Park to create eight new pickleball courts. The club has also offered to pay the roughly $150,000 it would take to facilitate the conversion, he said.
Just because the noise of pickleball isn’t as pleasing as the tennis ‘Pop’ sound doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow it to be in our parks.
amanda brown, parks and recreation commissioner
Siegel suggested that moving ahead with the conversion is the logical next step between the pickleball community and the city, which perennially makes “wellness and belonging” a top priority. What better way to advance this priority than to support a sport that can be played by residents of all ages? Removing the two tennis courts to create eight pickleball courts “simply reallocates existing court space in a far more optimal way through the lens of community wellness,” Siegel told the commission.
He also suggested that Mitchell Park is particularly well suited for pickleball because unlike smaller parks in other areas, it is not located next to homes where residents could be disturbed by the constant sound of balls being hit with paddles.
“We recognize noise is a real issue in some other cities where pickleball courts are situated close to residential buildings,” Siegel said. “We are fortunate that Mitchell Park is well suited far from the nearest residents, with trees and buildings in between. And the residential noise is simply not an issue.”
No one disputed his assertion that there remains a heavy demand for more pickleball courts. Siegel’s group currently has about 1,000 members he said, of whom about 58% are Palo Alto residents, he said. And a recent survey of court usage from the Community Services Department confirmed that the Mitchell Park courts are extremely busy, particularly on weekday evenings and weekend mornings, according to Adam Howard, senior community services manager.
Howard reported that on a recent Thursday evening, 52 people were playing pickleball at Michell Park while 61 were waiting to play. All tennis courts were also in use.
“Tennis courts were full with tennis, pickleball courts were full with pickleball,” Howard said.
Yet the proposal from the pickleball community to convert additional tennis courts ran into a gauntlet of opposition on Tuesday, with dozens of tennis players and neighborhood residents blasting the proposal to convert additional courts. The city received about two dozen letters the morning before the hearing, according to Howard, mostly in opposition to a further pickleball expansion. Many critics also attended the hearing, with some accusing the pickleball players of being “greedy” in their expansion quest.
Alan Kaiser, a tennis player, was among those who disputed Siegel’s assertion that noise is not an issue. Palo Alto, like other communities, is confronting the question of whether the sport is compatible with parks, he said. In Mountain View, for example, residents are pushing back against the proposal to add courts to Cuesta Park, citing noise imposed.
“You go in the park, you hear ‘Click Click Click’ all the time — it doesn’t feel like a park anymore,” Kaiser said. “Tennis never has that problem. Tennis has some nice sounds to it. It’s not like pickleball.”
Critics also contended that in addition to creating more noise, expanding pickleball at Mitchell Park would exacerbate the parking shortage in the area, a popular hub that includes the Magical Bridge playground, the city’s largest library, a community center and Ada’s Café. James Fox, a tennis players who lives less than half a mile from the park, urged the commission not to make these problems worse.
“I sit in my backyard and all day and all night, I hear the pickleball in my backyard,” Fox said.
Not all neighbors are opposed to the expansion. John Wang, president of the Stevenson House board of directors, wrote to the commission that the facility has not received any complaints from residents or staff about noise from the courts.
“To the contrary, the staff and residents view the pickleball courts as an asset, as the residents can walk to the courts, borrow paddles, and get exercise and have fun without spending money or driving a car,” Wang wrote.
The senior community, which is located near Mitchell Park, has not taken any positions on the potential expansion, Wang said.
The pickleball club has also struck a deal with the nonprofit Ability Path that will allow the pickleball club use 35 of its parking spaces for evening play. Siegel pointed to these partnership as an example of the pickleball community mitigating the impacts of its sport. But even as he asserted that the conversion would cost the city absolutely nothing, others argued that debate isn’t really about money but about equity.
“This is not a money issue,” said Jennie Chan, a resident of south Palo Alto. “We’re talking about Palo Alto residents’ right to enjoy their own amenities. … The Pickleball Club thinks it can buy their way in to displace the residents’ rights to amenities? That is totally not right.”
And even with the funding contribution from the club, the expansion proposal proved to be a tough sell for the parks commission. Even though the commission didn’t make any formal recommendations on Tuesday, several members argued displacement of tennis players from Mitchell Park.
“I do believe this latest request is going too far,” Commission Vice Chair Jeff Greenfield said. “I think it fragments the tennis community at Mitchell Park too much — beyond the point of no return.”
Commissioner Shani Kleinhaus agreed and, like Greenfield, suggested that a better approach would be to build more pickleball courts at a different location, even if it takes more time and money to find these spots.
“The clustering of more pickleball at Mitchell creates really high-conflict hotspots where they’re clearly winners and losers, whereas looking at other places would be better and more equitable,” Kleinhaus said.
Kleinhaus also took issue with assertions from the pro-pickleball crowd that noise is not a problem. The impact of noise isn’t just on neighbors but also on park users.
“A lot of people are there all the time,” Kleinhaus said. “And as you expand the noise sphere, people enjoy the park less. Some of them may not come anymore where other people will be coming to enjoy their sport.”
She and other members suggested instituting a registration system to manage demand, a recommendation that some critics of the pickleball expansion also supported. Some of her colleagues, however, sided with the pickleball users and supported restriping tennis courts to allow more pickleball play.
Commissioner Anne Cribbs supported the Palo Alto Pickleball Club proposal to restripe tennis courts in the near term and to continue exploring other locations going forward. Commissioner Amanda Brown lauded the sense of community that pickleball has created in Mitchell Park and compared it to the tennis courts at Rinconada Park. The city had done a lot for pickleball in recent years, Brown said. Pickleball, in turn, has done a lot of Palo Alto.
“Just because the noise of pickleball isn’t as pleasing as the tennis ‘Pop’ sound doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow it to be in our parks,” she said. “There are some dogs with horrible, horrible growls and barks. They’re still in our parks, walking around, and we don’t disallow them to be there.”
Commission Chair Nellis Freeman similarly touted the benefits of the quickly growing sport and supported adding courts.
“I think we all realize that pickleball is more than just a trend. It’s not going away. It’s become a critical source of physical activity, outdoor engagement and social connections for our residents,” Freeman said.
Clarification: The story has been amended to clarify that John Wang was speaking for himself, not for the Stevenson House board of directors, and that neither he nor the board have taken a position on the addition of pickleball courts at Mitchell Park.
Pickleball noise is yes or no, not more or less. The courts at Mitchell Park are constantly in use during open hours. Constant white noise. I do think pickle ball adds value to the community. At least the first layer of neighbors at Mitchell Park are non-profits not residences. So I strongly recommend adding pickle ball at Mitchell park rather than, sorry, inflicting noise on a new neighborhood where courts may be closely surrounded by residences. Or look for indoor locations for pickleball, or consider sound proofing walls. Allow pickleball, but locate it to protect residences from the noise. If you want to step outside and hear crickets, waiting until 10pm is a lot to ask.