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As pickleball becomes more and more popular in Orange County, some cities are taking a closer look at the best way to offer courts without creating excess noise or spending too much money.
A 2024 review by Chapman University students in partnership with Voice of OC found the county had approximately 220 public courts available with plans to add dozens more in different cities across the county.
[Read: OC Pickleball Courts Swell to Meet Demand]
While cities like Newport Beach and La Palma are opening new courts in their towns, Laguna Beach officials are taking a look at persistent pickleball noise complaints — having already reduced the hours players are allowed to use courts at Lang Park.
Living Steps Away From Three Pickleball Courts
At Laguna Beach’s Lang Park, three pickleball courts are right next to the Vista Aliso senior living community, causing years of resident complaints and city efforts to reduce pickleball noise.
Residents have complained about the near-constant pick-pick-pick sound of paddles and balls hitting back and forth.
The issue has gotten so bad that the council voted unanimously to require the use of “quiet” pickleball paddles at Lang Park during their meeting on Feb. 25 — another attempt to reduce noise at the courts while allowing residents to play.
Quiet pickleball paddles are offered by a couple different companies to reduce the sound of the ball hitting the paddle upon impact. Alexis Braun, Laguna Beach Recreation Manager, said the city has already sold 200 of these paddles at cost to residents.
Braun also said code enforcement or the city’s park rangers would be able to cite residents who use different kinds of paddles.
Susana Cruciana, a Laguna Beach resident who lives in the Vista Aliso neighborhood, has been calling out the noise issues at Lang Park for years.
“The stress from the delays and the unrelenting noise has contributed to serious decline in my own health, which is why you haven’t seen me in many months,” Cruciana said at the Feb. 25 meeting.
Mandating the use of quiet paddles isn’t the first attempt by council members to fix this problem.
The council recently reduced the Lang Park pickleball court hours by nearly 30% — leaving the courts closed on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and all day on Mondays.
In 2023, the city installed new fencing in an attempt to reduce noise levels, but complaints persisted after the installation.
Previously, the city also encouraged the use of quiet paddles before making the decision to require them altogether.
“Over the years, all mitigation has failed, including the quiet paddles,” Cruciana said.
Some speakers at the meeting, including pickleball players and other nearby residents, said the noise issue isn’t that bad and requiring players to use specific paddles at a public park isn’t fair.
Joanna Liddiard, who uses the courts at Lang Park, said she supported the use of quiet paddles but emphasized that pickleball players have already given up enough.
“I think we as pickleball players have certainly given a lot to appease the noise, sound or inconvenience to any of the residents that they may incur, but I do think it’s a public park,” Liddiard said.
“There’s noise in Laguna Beach,” she said.
Mayor Alex Rounaghi also said he supported restoring Lang Park’s pickleball court hours if the quiet paddles solve the noise problem.
“Pickleball is a life-changing thing for so many people,” Rounaghi said. “It sounds dramatic, but it really is, and I’m supportive of more uses. I think it’s a fair compromise where we’re making the pickleball community have to have a certain set of paddles, which has reduced noise and which will reduce noise even more.”
Laguna Beach council members have multiple times discussed relocating these three courts altogether to get rid of noise issues once and for all.
During a meeting in June 2024, the Laguna Beach City Council directed staff to analyze a redesign of the park to potentially relocate the pickleball courts away from housing.
“This keeps coming back because it was a bad decision,” Councilmember Bob Whalen said during that June 11 meeting. “We put [the courts] in the wrong place.”
During the Feb. 25 meeting, Assistant City Manager Gavin Curran said the council is expected to revisit this topic at a future meeting and further discuss the possibility of relocating the three pickleball courts away from the Vista Aliso apartments and closer to the other side of Lang Park.
Cruciana said the council needs to pass a minimum distance requirement to prevent noise issues when constructing courts.
“An ordinance needs to be created requiring pickleball courts to be at least 250 feet away, and hard plastic balls should not be used,” Cruciana said. “Unwanted sound is noise pollution.”
The council approved requiring quiet pickleball paddles at Lang Park in a second unanimous vote on March 11. The requirement is expected to go into effect on April 11.
Other Cities Struggle With High Cost, Little Space
Some cities don’t offer any public court space due to concerns over cost or simply because the city doesn’t have anywhere to put the courts.
Others are making progress on constructing new courts or restriping existing facilities for pickleball usage.
In La Palma, the city recently completed a restriping project, converting some tennis courts at Central Park to create the city’s first four public pickleball courts.
The city previously had plans to construct brand new courts, but concerns over high cost led to the restriping project instead. Constructing new courts would have cost the city about $325,000, while the restriping project brought the total cost down to about $110,000.
[Read: More Pickleball Courts Are Coming to Orange County]
In Newport Beach, the city recently completed its Newport Coast pickleball courts project, which created eight new pickleball courts for public access right next to the Newport Coast Community Center.
Brea also doesn’t have any public courts in town, but an ongoing construction project at Arovista Park is expected to bring four new pickleball courts for public usage by the fall.
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
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