Council doubles down on plan to add 16 pickleball courts to Bonnerworth Park after testy debate

City council voted against reconsidering a plan to turn Bonnerworth Park into a hub for the fast-growing – but controversial – sport of pickleball, after a heated debate that lasted almost two hours on Tuesday night.

Councillor Joy Lachica had brought forward a motion calling on council to discuss “alternatives” to the plan, which will see 16 new pickleball courts built in the park starting this fall. But her motion failed in an 8-3 vote.

The general committee meeting was interrupted multiple times by opponents of the park redevelopment making noise in the gallery of the council chambers, with committee chair Andrew Beamer kicking one resident out of the chambers.

There was also a tense moment when Councillor Alex Bierk said that Mayor Jeff Leal’s wife had offered to let him borrow her pickleball racket.

Beamer had to intervene after Leal became upset at the comment. Beamer reminded Bierk that councillors are not supposed to mention each other’s “spouses, partners, family members, anything like that” during meetings.

Bierk apologized, saying he meant the comment “in a positive way.”

“I was trying to acknowledge the fact that I personally am very excited about pickleball,” he said.

Leal made more comments off mic that were not audible on the meeting livestream, forcing Beamer to say, “Mayor Leal, we’ll just leave it at that.”

“I just heard you say I’m going to regret I ever said that,” Bierk replied to Leal. “I said a few times that I take it back. I’m learning how to work here. I meant it in a positive way.”

Park redesign an “abomination,” Councillor Riel says

While introducing her motion, Lachica had urged council to “press pause” on the park redevelopment.

“There’s got to be a better alternative,” she said.

The new pickleball courts are part of a $4.4 million redevelopment of Bonnerworth Park, located at the corner of McDonnel St. and Monaghan Rd., into an “active recreation hub.”

The overhaul will see the park’s existing baseball diamonds and tennis courts torn out to make more space for pickleball, as well as a new bike pump track and an expansion of the current skatepark.

But Lachica’s motion said the pickleball courts will be too close to homes and apartments nearby and that the redesign will result in the loss of too much greenspace within the park.

Lachica said that nearby residents “never got an equitable opportunity” to have their feedback on the design taken into consideration.

She called on council to “find a scenario” that won’t exclude current park users who play baseball and tennis and enjoy the open greenspace in the park.

“Don’t push anyone out,” she said.

The city’s 2024 budget includes just over $2 million to construct the new pickleball courts, build additional parking and complete design work for the project. The rest of the work is scheduled for 2025 and will cost almost $2.4 million.

Councillor Keith Riel called the conceptual design for the park, which was presented to residents at a public consultation in March, “a complete abomination to a community park.”

One thing he took issue with is the “huge” new parking lot that is planned.

“The proposed parking lot flies in the face of our active transportation plan that is promoting people getting out of their cars and using transit or a bike to get to their destination,” he said.

Riel said council was “never shown the finished product” before the design was revealed to the public. Council unanimously approved the redevelopment last October before a conceptual design or site plan had been completed.

“We left the decision making to unelected senior city staff” and the Arena, Parks and Recreation advisory committee, he said. “Shame on me. Shame on council for usurping our elected duties.”

Riel also raised concerns about noise generated from the pickleball courts disturbing the residents of Hunt Terraces, the Peterborough Housing Corporation building that lies next to the park on Bonaccord St.

The redesign will include grassy berms and trees to muffle the noise from the pickleball courts, but Riel said that won’t stop sound from travelling up.

“Our new building at 555 Bonaccord is six storeys high. I don’t know how you prevent noise going six storeys,” he said.

But Leal argued that the sound from the pickleball courts will not exceed the noise from the thousands of cars that already pass along Monaghan Rd. each day.

“I was naive” to support Bonnerworth redevelopment, Councillor Bierk says

Bierk apologized to residents for initially supporting the plan to redevelop Bonnerworth when it first came before council last October.

“I have to apologize to the residents because I was naive,” he said.

Bierk said he had imagined that the 16 pickleball courts would “take up the same footprint” as the current four tennis courts do. He said he had asked staff for a site plan at the October meeting but was told “don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

Then, when he saw the conceptual design presented at a public meeting last month he was surprised that it showed most of the park’s greenspace would be “paved.”

“We’ve seen the actual project and now we need to rethink it because it’s way different than most of us expected,” he said.

But Leal dismissed concerns about the loss of greenspace in Bonnerworth, saying that if people want greenspace, they can take a short walk to nearby Jackson Park.

“If you’re telling me you want greenspace… Jackson Park is one of the largest urban parks in any community in Canada today,” he said.

Pickleball is already played at Bonnerworth – lines were added to the tennis courts there so that they can be used for both sports.

Leal mentioned that there had been a pickleball tournament at the park last summer that he said drew 200 participants. He asked recreation and park services manager Rob McCauley if there had been any noise complaints about that event.

After being interrupted by noise from people in the gallery, McCauley replied that he was “not aware of any noise complaints resulting from that tournament.”

Delaying the redevelopment would be costly, says Councillor Parnell

Parks co-chair Lesley Parnell said there had been extensive consultation on the city’s parks and outdoor recreation facilities study, which includes the Bonnerworth redevelopment plan, going back to 2018.

“We consulted with all of the stakeholders, all of the people who use the parks, to identify what are their needs, now and into the future,” she said.

She said that making changes to the Bonnerworth plan now would result in costly delays.

“It’ll be a big delay. We will not get any of these amenities for at least another year,” she said. “We have to move forward in order to meet our timelines or it will delay the whole project and increase the cost significantly.”

Councillor Gary Baldwin, the other parks co-chair, said while there was consultation on the city-wide parks study, residents who live near Bonnerworth Park “became involved in the process too late.”

He said he wanted to see more consultation with the neighbourhood, but at the same time he didn’t want to hold up the redevelopment.

“If we’re going to be a progressive city and we’re going to move things forward, I believe we should move on with the plan,” he said.

In the end, the motion lost in an 8-3 vote, with only councillors Lachica, Riel and Bierk voting in favour of reconsidering the redevelopment. Councillors will ratify that vote at a city council meeting on April 8.

Community services commissioner Sheldon Laidman said that staff still need to conduct a traffic study before finalizing the design for the park, including how much parking to provide on site.

“The least amount of parking as necessary will be included in the site plan, to preserve the greenspace” while still ensuring that the park can be “serviced properly,” he said.

An acoustical study will also be conducted to determine “what type of berms or other acoustical features are required on the site” and whether the pickleball courts should be placed in a different part of the park.

Pickleball “doesn’t mix with a residential area,” resident says

Jen Milsom, who lives near Bonnerworth Park, told Currents last week that the neighbourhood was “blindsided” by the redevelopment plan.

Although council approved it last fall, nearby residents were not consulted until design plans were presented at a public open house on March 21, according to Milsom.

She and her family are regulars at the park’s tennis courts and she said she’s frustrated that the city is ripping them out in order to prioritize what she called “a fad sport” like pickleball.

The tennis courts were recently resurfaced and are the best in the city, according to Milsom. ”Why tear up something that was just redone?”

The city is replacing the four tennis courts at Bonnerworth with new ones at Knights of Columbus Park on Park St., at a cost of more than $1.1 million (some of that money will also go toward design work for a larger revamp of that park).

Milsom said she already hears the loud thwacking sound from rackets hitting plastic pickleballs in Bonnerworth from her home a five minute walk away. She said she “can’t even imagine the volume of sound” that will come from 16 pickleball courts.

Pickleball players “deserve to have their own space but it doesn’t need to be right in the middle of town,” she said. ”It doesn’t mix with a residential area.”

Right now most of Bonnerworth Park is a large, grassy open area, with baseball diamonds on either side. Barbara Rotz told Currents she is worried about losing that greenspace and the added traffic that will come from more people using the park.

“I like there to be a large, open spot for people to just tumble, to play, to kick a ball around,” said Rotz, who lives nearby and often walks through Bonnerworth on her way to Jackson Park.

Rotz also objected to expanding the amount of parking on site.

“Shouldn’t we be encouraging walking?” she said. “I think it’s a shame we want to pave everything over.”

Pickleball association downplays noise concerns

Pickleball is exploding in Peterborough, according Shelley Moloney, president of the Peterborough Pickleball Association.

“This sport is the most addictive,” Moloney told Currents last week. Part of the appeal is that it’s not as physically demanding as tennis, making it easy to play for people of a wide range of ages and abilities, she said. “We have some that are 90 [years old] playing the game.”

But it can be hard to find a space to play, according to Moloney.

“We’re just lacking facilities just with the number of people that are playing now,” she said.

There are currently 10 pickleball courts across the city, according to a city staff report, but six of them are also used for tennis.

Moloney said she doesn’t think the noise from the new courts at Bonnerworth will “be an issue.”

She said that people have already been playing pickleball in the park for years and the group has “never had one noise complaint.”

Bigger skateboard park also coming to Bonnerworth Park

The current skate park in Bonnerworth, which is more than 20 years old, is “beloved” by local skateboarders – but it’s also “cracked” and “outdated,” according to Dan Post, co-founder of the Peterborough Skate Coalition.

And it gets crowded in the summer. With skateboarding recently being added to the Olympics, and the sport seeing a surge in popularity during the pandemic, more and more people have been coming to the skate park, he said.

“There’s really a lack of space at the current park, in terms of square footage for people to actually spread out and enjoy different pockets of it safely,” he said.

That’s why Post is happy that the redesign of Bonnerworth Park will include a major expansion of the existing skatepark.

The current park isn’t beginner friendly, either, because it has many high drop-off points and obstacles that are too challenging for beginners. “It’s a really hard barrier for entry to people who are just learning to skateboard,” he said.

But the addition will be ”a more modern take on the skatepark” that will be easier for beginners to navigate, according to Post.

His group wants to host after-school skateboarding programs for at-risk youth and summer camps, but they need a skate park that’s suitable for beginners to make that happen.

Bonnerworth Park to get Peterborough’s first bike pump track

Tegan Moss, the former head of community bike shop B!KE, said she has been advocating for a bike pump track in Peterborough since 2017.

Bike pump tracks are being built in many municipalities across Ontario, according to a city staff report.

They consist of looped circuits of rolling terrain that allow cyclists to use momentum to propel themselves forward, instead of pedaling.

The tracks can also be used with scooters and rollerblades, according to the report.

“These facilities can provide fundamental development skills to youth learning to ride a bike, scooter, or rollerblade,” the report states.

Moss said it is “great to see” a pump track coming to Peterborough.

“I think it will help a lot of people become more confident bicycle riders,” she said.

The pump track will be located on the north side of the park, near Bonaccord St., where one of two baseball diamonds is currently located, according to designs provided by the city.

Moss said those ball diamonds are “underused,” and that it’s exciting that the park is being redeveloped to include a wider variety of recreational facilities.

“I think there’s a lot of potential to see this whole park used in a really vibrant, active way.”

Moss said she understands “that the way that this project was announced to the neighborhood was potentially not the way those neighbours would have liked to hear about it.”

“But I’m really excited that the city is moving forward on some of these facilities – and in such an accessible location,” she said.

According to the city staff report, Peterborough has seen a decrease in baseball diamond rentals in recent years and currently has a surplus of baseball facilities.

With files from Eddy Sweeney.