SMITHFIELD – Town officials are hiring a sound engineer to do all appropriate research before making any decisions on the future of the Willow Field Pickleball Courts.
The study, said Town Manager Robert Seltzer, will include an evaluation of Deerfield Park, which is seen as a potential spots to relocate the current pickleball courts off Willow Road.
The Local Insider reported early last month that Town Council members wanted to confer with neighbors of the facility before moving forward with any possible expensive solutions, such as a new raised fence with sound buffering material.
Seltzer said he doesn’t want to reproduce existing noise issues found in the neighborhood of Willow Field at Deerfield Park. He said elevation also plays a role in considerations of that location.
Right now they’re concentrating on making the right decision, said Seltzer, getting pricing squared away on various options “so we know exactly what we’re talking about.”
He said there are perhaps a half-dozen or so neighbors of the Willow Field Pickleball Courts who are in regular communication on the noise, but they represent a number of others who are also not happy about the situation.
He said they’ve taken a number of steps, including cutting back hours at the courts now that youth are back in school.
“It’s still a work in progress,” he said. “Neighbors aren’t happy, pickleball players love (the courts).”
He said he’s visited a number of times listening, and does understand what neighbors are complaining about, adding, “it’s a little nerve-wracking.”
If the town can isolate the sound so they’re not listening to it every day, that will be great, he said, but he doesn’t want to spend money on a solution that doesn’t really work.
The sound engineer could come back with a number of potential avenues forward, including the idea of adding the elevated fence with noise absorption material rather than noise reflecting material.
Moving the courts won’t be cheap, he said, and even if they’re moved to Deerfield Park, elevation of surround homes could mean that new neighbors are impacted as sound rises and travels.
“We just want to do the right thing for all the neighbors involved,” he said. “We want to quiet it down, and we want to be able to have the recreation that it brings.”
If the Willow Field Pickleball Courts are decommissioned, he said, they’ll likely go back to their old use of tennis.
There are no dedicated pickleball courts currently at Deerfield Park, said Seltzer. The existing tennis courts there are used as pickleball courts by sliding a net on wheels over to a tennis court to produce a smaller play area.
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