After a gruelling five-hour meeting on Monday night (April 8), Peterborough City Council approved a $4.4 million redevelopment plan for Bonnerworth Park that includes an expanded skate park, a bike pump track, and — most controversially — 16 pickleball courts.
Town Ward councillor Joy Lachica, whose ward includes Bonnerworth Park, had tabled a motion last Tuesday night at council’s general committee meeting to revisit the redevelopment plan in response to concerns of neighbouring residents primarily about the potential noise and traffic that would result from the large number of pickleball courts.
That motion, supported by Lachica’s fellow Town Ward councillor Alex Bierk as well as Ashburnham Ward councillor Keith Riel, lost in an 8 to 3 vote last Tuesday and — as is the case for all items voted on by general committee — was then brought forward to the regular city council meeting for a confirmation vote, where it again lost in the same 8 to 3 vote, with only councillors Lachica, Bierk, and Riel voting in favour of delaying the project.
While Monday night’s meeting was a marathon, it was absent the heated discussion in the debate of Lachica’s motion the previous week — which had included Mayor Jeff Leal reportedly telling councillor Bierk he “would carve him like a Thanksgiving turkey” after Bierk had referred to borrowing a pickleball racquet from the mayor’s wife, who he mentioned by name, contrary to council protocols.
On Monday night, Leal apologized for the “intemperate language” he directed at Bierk, saying he “overreacted.”
“My words were ill-chosen,” Leal said. “I don’t regret responding; however, I do regret the way in which I chose to respond.”
Much of Monday night’s meeting was spent hearing from 10 delegations from the community that were either in favour of and against the redevelopment plan, in particular the installation of 16 pickleball courts.
Professional pickleball player and coach Jennie Davis told council that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in North America and is increasingly popular with people under 24 years old, and existing facilities cannot keep up with the demand even though they have been expanding their programming.
“You could build 40 courts in the city tomorrow, and I promise you they would be filled by 9 a.m.,” Davis said in her presentation. “The reason pickleball has become so popular is because it’s easy to play, it’s inexpensive, and it’s incredibly social due to the court size.”
In response to a question from councillor Bierk about 16 pickleball courts being located in a residential area, Davis said there is a “host of ways” to prevent noise from being an issue.
“The proposal is there’s going to be berms, there’s going to be trees that are planted to create more green space, and there’s also going to be the option of using noise walls as well,’ she said. “Because pickleball is gaining so much steam, there are so many companies now that are creating solutions to the noise issue.”
Also in response to a question from councillor Bierk, Davis said that having eight courts in two different locations would not meet the demand for the sport, and would also not allow for tournaments to be easily held.
The next delegation was Shelley Moloney, president of the Peterborough Pickleball Association, who told council she supports having 16 courts in one location because it would allow Peterborough to host large tournaments, pointing out that hosting tournaments would also benefit the local economy.
“With a facility such as this, we would certainly be on the radar to hold a provincial or national pickleball event,” Moloney said, adding that a national tournament held in Kingston in 2022 brought in close to $1 million to that city.
“Why shouldn’t Peterborough be the trailblazer?” she asked, referring to an earlier question about whether other municipalities offer 16 outdoor pickleball courts in a single location. “It would certainly put us on the map, and it’s wonderful to see that the city is even thinking about this — being progressive and filling a huge recreational need.”
In response to a question from councillor Riel, Moloney said the Peterborough Pickleball Association has access to 10 outdoor pickleball courts in the city, including four dedicated ones at Knights of Columbus Park and six “makeshift” ones — tennis courts that have been converted for pickleball, such as those at Bonnerworth Park.
While there are also a number of indoor courts available at facilities including the YMCA and the Wellness Centre, Moloney said there are no indoor courts designed specifically for pickleball.
“We don’t have a proper indoor facility, like a set pickleball facility here in the city,” she said.
In response to a question from councillor Bierk, Moloney said the Peterborough Pickleball Association would be willing to financially contribute to the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment.
In response to a question from councillor Dave Haacke, Moloney estimated the Peterborough Pickleball Association would be reserving use of the 16 pickleball courts at Bonnerworth around 32 per cent of the time, with the remaining time being available for open public use, based on their current permitting of courts for around 27 hours of the 84 hours per week they are available.
After hearing from pickleball player Ruby Byrne, who expressed her support for the 16 pickleball courts, Geoff Rix and Dan Post of the Peterborough Skateboard Coalition spoke to council in support of approving the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment so the skate park expansion could proceed as soon as possible.
Comparing skateboarders to pickleball players, Rix said that skateboarders were also once “the unwelcome additions.”
In a response to a question from councillor Kevin Duguay, Post said users of the skate park had no issue with being adjacent to the pickleball courts.
“We share that vision of a co-mingling of different generations,” Post explained. “As you know, skateboarding attracts younger people certainly, but also people who don’t necessarily have a lot of contact with the mainstream of other members of the community, so we have always thought that Bonnerworth was a tremendous location to create an interconnected style of park.”
“It would be our vision to see it cohesively built, with pathways and ways for skateboarders to leave the (skate) park and head to the pickleball and potentially interact with both. We (could) pitch to the pickleball group a ‘learn how to’ event maybe, or they come to learn to skate (and) we learn to pickleball.”
After Dylan Scott spoke against the 16 pickleball courts, saying “Would 16 courts make it a pickleball park?,” council heard from Bill O’Byrne, a director with the Peterborough Pickleball Association and a former tennis player who took up pickleball when he was 70 years old.
On the issue of noise from pickleball courts, O’Byrne said that a U.S. study done by acoustic engineers found that berms, sound-deadening windscreens, and vegetation can reduce the sound level at 115 feet to the low 60 decibels (about as loud as an air conditioner or vacuum cleaner).
“We can manage the sound issue,” O’Byrne said.
The next delegation to present to council was Richard Scott, a Middleton Drive resident and retired park and environmental planner who worked for Parks Canada and the National Capital Commission.
Scott was critical of the process followed in the Bonnerworth Park redevelopment plan, referring to the “missing middle.”
“The city’s current planning process jumped from A, defining broad city-wide facility needs, to C, recommending specific facilities for Bonnerworth Park — these facilities are now undergoing detailed design,” Scott explained. “Missing was step B, an intermediate step in the planning process to assess whether, what, and to what extent recreational facilities were appropriate for this park.”
That intermediate step, according to Scott, “would reduce the level of the risk to the city,” including later delays in the planning process, inappropriate solutions, solutions that cannot be mitigated or only at great expense, and “legal challenges that in some cities have actually closed municipal (pickleball) courts.”
“We have to get this right,” Scott said, adding that the city should step back to improve the “missing middle” by consulting with recreational users and surrounding neighbourhoods.
City council then heard a remote delegation by retired engineer and project manager Paul Sobanski, who explained the three constraints of project management — time, cost, and scope — affecting the quality of a project (commonly expressed as “Good, fast, cheap. Choose two.”).
Sobanski said that the existing redevelopment plan has three major risks — sound mitigation, traffic management, and stormwater management — with sound mitigation being the highest risk.
“This project as it structured is very, very risky, because it is taking chances on budget, time, and scope, and there’s a better way to do it,” Sobanski said, recommending that work on the skate park expansion and bike pump track proceed first, with work on the pickleball courts delayed until a noise mitigation study can be completed.
The final delegation was Middleton Drive resident John Gerelus, who said he was part of a group of residents from the broader area that “support the inclusive and equitable development of Bonnerworth Park.”
Gerelus said the group he represents supports the skate park expansion and the bike pump track, but is concerned with the increase of noise and loss of green space from the installation of 16 pickleball courts, and especially the loss of existing use of the park.
“A group of determined residents in a matter of a few days after the meeting on March 21st were able to find copious evidence of shuttered pickleball courts, noise studies, and lawsuits related to pickleball noise in residential areas in countless cities across North America,” Gerelus said, adding that the proposed noise, lighting, and traffic studies “after ground has been broken doesn’t make any sense.”
Gerelus said that, once redevelopment happens, existing amenities in the park will be “gone forever” and noise mitigation has already been proven not to work. He suggested that the pickleball courts should instead be inside a building and not near a residential area, and criticized the loss of use of green space, including by students.
Gerelus also said the only notice of the redevelopment that residents received was a postcard from the city for the March 21st drop-in session, and urged councillors to pause the project.
Councillor Riel put forward a motion to suspend the rules limiting the number of public delegations on an item before council to 10, to allow for two additional delegations from the Peterborough Baseball Association and the Peterborough Housing Corporation, which was defeated.
After additional delegations on another topic and voting on consent items, councillors debated the motion from councillor Lachica, who spoke in favour of it along with councillors Bierk and Riel, while councillors Kevin Duguay and Lesley Parnell spoke against it.
Prior to the vote on Lachica’s motion, Mayor Leal responded to “a question of my personal integrity” regarding a conflict of interest on the subject of the pickleball courts.
“Let me be clear: I am not a pickleball player, I am not a member of the Peterborough Pickleball Association, and I’ve never received any amount of money from the Peterborough Pickleball Association,” he said. “My wife is a pickleball player and she is one of 300-plus members of PPA. She has never received money from the PPA. She is not an elected representative, and she can choose whatever hobbies or interests she chooses. This is 2024.”
“To suggest that I have a conflict because she plays pickleball is absurd,” Leal added, before asking councillors whether they or their family members use any municipally funded facilities.
On a point of order, councillor Lachica asked the mayor to clarify whether the accusation of a conflict of interest came from a member of council. Leal said the accusation was received in an email — “That’s why I’m addressing it in a public forum.”
“Conflict of interest involves pecuniary (financial) interest only and I have nothing to declare,” Leal continued, before displaying a piece of paper he said he received “under my desk today” that referred to the Peterborough Pickleball Association thanking the mayor’s wife for donating to a barbeque, where the mayor also cooked hamburgers.
“It’s one of a thousand barbeques I’ve done in my public life, and I also wanted to make sure I paid for my hamburger at that particular event,” Leal said, before tossing the piece of paper over his shoulder onto the floor.
A vote was then held on councillors Lachica’s motion, which was defeated 8 to 3 with only councillors Lachica, Bierk, and Riel voting in favour.
