More Pickleball Courts for Las Mañanitas?
It's no secret that pickleball is exploding in popularity in North America, and the use of the "tennis court" at Las Mañanitas for pickleball is no exception.
About a month ago, our Community Managers modified the signup sheet to track HOW our court is used -- tennis, pickleball or basketball. Pickleball reservations outpace tennis by a ratio of 2:1. (Basketball was relatively infrequent, perhaps because it can be used WHILE pickleball is being played.)
The court is scheduled for resurfacing in May, and the Board was presented two plans. The first was to stripe it like this (which is the current configuration). Note: the net is used by both pickleball and tennis.
The court could also be laid out in this "double-court" layout, with portable nets (see below). That allows two simultaneous pickleball games:
The main benefit of the double-court layout is that Las Mañanitas can offer better availability of court time. Ironically, adding the second pickleball court not only increases availability for pickleball players. It increases court time available for tennis, too. That's because pickleball players can play during an hour when the court is already being used for another pickleball game. By doing that (which we'll encourage them to do), they leave the free hour unbooked, thereby making it available for tennis instead of used for pickleball.
The main cost is noise. Two owners from Phase I sent some YouTube clips of news stories where neighbors were up in arms because of the noise of pickleball rackets. The Board polled several Owners from Phases II and III -- those most likely to be impacted -- and pickleball noise was not a problem. (One of them opined that because the court is below grade, the sound does not really travel. Further, the road noise is an order of magnitude more than pickleball "plinks"!)
So, on balance, the Board felt the cost/benefit analysis was in favor of moving to the double-court configuration.
UPDATE APRIL 15, 2020
Based on feedback from a member of the Vigilance Committee and also from a Pickleball Pro who frequently uses the court, there will be less confusion regarding lines if the courts are laid out like this:
Accordingly, the contractor has been asked to configure the resurfacing accordingly.