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America’s recent passion for pickleball has generated some high-profile friction on public courts, including in the Bay Area — but now pushback against the nation’s fastest-growing sport may be spilling into people’s backyards.
Fearing the constant thwack of paddles against plastic balls, a wealthy Marin County town is considering banning or regulating pickleball courts at private homes.
While tensions have arisen in San Francisco over access to public courts and various neighbor complaints about them, including noise, the Ross Town Council at its Sept. 12 meeting focused on the potential for private courts to generate high-decibel disturbances.
The sport can generate 70 decibels of sharp, repetitive sound called “impulsive” noise within 100 feet of a court — twice as loud as tennis, according to Barry Wyerman of Pickleball Sound Mitigation, a consulting firm often cited as an authority on the topic. He suggests a maximum standard of 50 impulsive decibels, as measured at the property line.
So far, it appears no homes in Ross have installed private courts specifically for pickleball and there have been no noise complaints, according to town staff. If a ban or regulations are adopted, Ross would likely be among the first Bay Area cities to rein in private courts.
The noise issue was first raised in Ross last spring by Mayor Pro Tem Julie McMillan and Council Member Elizabeth Robbins, who requested that staff review the need for regulations for construction of private pickleball courts “and the potential noise disturbances they create,” according to a town staff report.
“Obviously the noise is the big problem” being raised in Ross, said Council Member Mathew Salter at the meeting this month.
According to the staff report, satellite imagery of Ross shows that there are 11 tennis courts, seven basketball courts and three smaller sport courts at homes in Ross. Tennis courts can be converted to pickleball courts with two fitting in the same space, offering the potential of twice the sound of plastic meeting graphite or fiberglass.
“The noise resulting from a game of pickleball travels at a higher frequency and sound level than tennis, potentially making it more irritating to listeners,” the staff report said.
According to the report, other Bay Area towns such as Mill Valley, San Anselmo, Hillsborough, Los Altos, Berkeley and Atherton do not require use permits for the construction of residential pickleball courts. In 2022, the Marin County town of Tiburon passed legislation requiring a sound study be done in advance of a permit being issued for construction of a residential pickleball court.
The Ross staff report also noted that sound studies suggest that a pickleball court must be at least 250 feet from the nearest property to satisfy an existing town regulation that limits noise to 55 decibels as a standard neighborhood requirement.
No specific proposals to legislate pickleball on private property in Ross have been made.
“I don’t want to ban it when there are other solutions,” Salter said, noting that there are quieter paddles and balls on the market that could mitigate the noise.
Reached Monday, McMillan and Robbins both deferred comment to Mayor Bill Kircher, who said that the council is still in an informational mode.
The issue was continued to the council’s October meeting so that staff can gather more information before any specific proposals for action are made.
“Should the Council decide that some form of regulation is warranted, then staff will draft specific measures for the Council to consider at a future meeting that is consistent with the Council’s direction and guidance,” Kircher said in an email. Sainsbury’s Recipe Ideas