If you thought the preview was something, just wait for the main event.
That’s the sentiment expressed by a group of city residents vehemently opposed to the City of Peterborough’s planned redevelopment of Bonnerworth Park — a $4.4 million dollar facelift that, should it move forward, will see 16 pickleball courts, a bike ‘pump’ track, and a parking lot replace the park’s existing two ball diamonds and much of its greenspace.
On Tuesday night (April 2), city councillors meeting as general committee were greeted by a very full and very vocal gallery of residents who live in close proximity to the park.
Their objection to the plan centres around the heightened noise and traffic they say will result from the pickleball courts, the loss of cherished and well-used urban greenspace, and what they say was a complete lack of consultation with them before the project report and its attached recommendations were written for councillors’ consideration.
While residents weren’t allowed to appeal to councillors directly at Tuesday’s meeting, deputations will be allowed this coming Monday night (April 8) when councillors meet again to ratify business conducted at the committee level. All indications are the neighbours of the park will be out in full force to make their case.
“We are digging in our heels on this matter,” says Elaine Gerelus who, with her husband John, has lived on nearby Middleton Drive for 23 years. “This is about our lifestyle, our ability to enjoy our yard and have friends over. We (residents) have invested a lot in our homes. This will have a huge impact on us.”
John says that, at one point during Tuesday’s meeting, he was optimistic that councillors would vote to take a step back and reconsider approving the park redevelopment plan.
That hope was quickly dashed when two motions put forward by Town Ward councillor Joy Lachica — the first calling for council discussion of alternative locations for pickleball courts and the second calling for additional consultation with neighbouring residents — were defeated.
“We’re not saying stop the project — we’re saying pause the project,” John says. “Let’s start the process again. This (plan) is really short sighted. It’s a knee jerk reaction to find a location to meet a need. Somebody, somewhere, said ‘Let’s do this.'”
Also planning to speak this Monday night is Richard Scott, a Middleton Drive resident and retired park and environmental planner who worked for Parks Canada and the National Capital Commission.
“We don’t understand why the city hasn’t done the research (into other possible locations) or, if it has done that, why it’s being ignored,” he says.
“This is the monopolization of a lot of space that is now available for all members of the community to use. Now they’re going to turn it into a park that serves specific user groups only. And in the winter, it will be unusable by anybody.”
Councillor Lachica plans to reintroduce her original motion on Monday night.
“There were two (council) votes around the motion,” she explains. “The first vote was to have an urgent public consultation meeting and also have reports on tennis and baseball (needs) come back. That lost 7 to 4.”
Lachica along with fellow Town Ward councillor Alex Bierk and councillors Keith Riel and Dave Haacke supported that motion.
“It then went back to my main motion to press pause so staff can come back with alternatives (to Bonnerworth Park), which lost 8 to 3.”
Only Lachica, Bierk, and Riel supported the original motion.
Of particular concern to Lachica, Bierk, and Riel is that the report recommending Bonnerworth be redeveloped for pickleball and the bike track was unanimously approved by council back in October — well before the design was prepared and presented at a March 21st public meeting.
It was only at that public meeting when the scope of the park’s redevelopment became fully known for the first time, and neighbours’ antennae went up.
That flies in the face of typical procedure that sees councillors vote after having reviewed site plans and other related material.
“I believe a few of us at the table really believed that major projects like this that are facilities-based and affect the whole city need to come before council in a visual way before a finalization of the plan going forward,” Lachica says. “I can speak for Alex and Keith when I say we voted (in October) for the needs of the city. We completely agree there are pickleball needs that Peterborough needs to address.”
“If you look at that report, there’s a qualifier that reads ‘if Bonnerworth is approved’. Bonnerworth isn’t approved. There hasn’t been traffic study. There hasn’t been a noise study to verify if this (Bonnerworth) is a feasible place for 16 courts. We came into that vote with an expectation that we would see what it looks like based on studies being done before anything is feasible or approved.”
Residents of the area also lament the effect that excessive noise, particularly in the evening, and increased traffic will have on residents of the nearby Marycrest At Inglewood Seniors’ Residence on Monaghan Road, as well as those living at Hunt Terrace, a Peterborough Housing Corporation building on Bonaccord Street.
Elaine makes it clear that she and her neighbours aren’t anti-pickleball.
“We’re now NIMBYS,” she says, referencing Not-In-My-Back-Yard accusations.
“The truth is, yeah, not in my backyard but not in anybody’s backyard,” clarifies John, noting a lesson should have be learned from the planned removal of four pickleball courts at Knights of Columbus due to their close proximity to houses raising concerns over excessive noise and lighting.
The potential for the same noise issues at the Bonnerworth Park site was noted in a November 2023 document called “Provision Strategy for Tennis and Pickleball Courts,” that was prepared for the city by consultants The ReThink Group and Basterfield & Associates Landscape Architects.
“Since sound travels out and up, and rebounds off hard surfaces, the amount of noise generated from 16 heavily used pickleball courts may be a problem for nearby residents,” the document states. “Sound barriers may not sufficiently mitigate noise travelling upward.”
In his remarks this Monday, Scott says “We’re going to offer a path forward … identify where the gaps are.”
“Some things the city has done well. Studies have identified what the overall citywide need for facilities is. But we’re gong to remind them they jumped from a high level right down to a specific plan for a specific park with specific facilities without understanding any of the implications.”
“Most planning processes, if you’re doing a site selection process, is you first identify a range of sites and you develop criteria to assess them. In the case of pickleball, known to be a controversial site location issue, you do criteria such as noise, traffic, and so on. They’re doing that at the back end of the process. It’s backwards.”
Meanwhile, representatives of the 400-member strong Peterborough Pickleball Association (PBA) are also expected at the podium this Monday night.
That’s according to PBA board member Judy Byrne, who says the association “was led to believe” the past Monday’s council meeting “was a closed meeting. That’s why we didn’t show up.”
Byrne adds the PBA has a petition with close to 600 signatures supporting the development of pickleball courts at Bonnerworth Park. That will be presented to councillors on Monday night.
“We’ve been playing at Bonnerworth for years with no noise complaints,” says Byrne, referencing the eight courts now located just east of the park.
“This (Bonnerworth) is a heavily underutilized park. There’s small clusters of people playing ball in the corners but that’s it pretty much throughout the day. It’s a park that needs development. It looks desolate.”
Saying she believes “the city is going to look after our interests,” Byrne is confident the planned park redevelopment will go ahead.
“If it’s not going to be there, it’s going to be somewhere,” she says. “But why not there? It’s easy to get to. It (the area) already has a tremendous amount of traffic noise and it’s a park that needs some visual help.”
The PBA, says Byrne, made some alternative site suggestions — the former Peterborough Naval Club property and Fleming College were two — but “they were pretty much shot down except for that place (Bonnerworth).”
“We’re not trying to bully our way through this. If for some reason all of our efforts to deaden the sound don’t work, we will continue to try and do something else to mitigate the noise. Maybe we’ll change the balls that we use. We’re not trying to be bad neighbours.”
Established in October 2021, the Peterborough Pickleball Association is a non-profit organization, the mission of which is to provide opportunities for people of all ages, skill levels, abilities and backgrounds to participate in pickleball, while promoting physical fitness and social engagement, good sportsmanship and fun through organized recreational and competitive play.
An estimated 350,000 people currently play pickleball across Canada, making it one of the country’s fastest-growing sports.
