Noise pollution threatens Wichita’s plan for $6 million pickleball palace | Opinion
As it turns out, hitting a hard perforated plastic ball with a wooden paddle makes a noticeable “thunk.”
Who’d a thunk it?
And when you have 50 or 100 people doing it, repeatedly, all at the same time, it becomes the kind of thing that can annoy even the most tolerant of neighbors.
And so it goes with the $6 million pickleball palace that Wichita is working on for South Lakes Park.
The facility is back on the drawing board after a study indicated that pickleball tournaments would generate enough noise to violate the city’s own noise ordinance.
“Luckily, we were able to look into this before we built the thing and then realized it was too noisy at times,” said Mayor Brandon Whipple. ““One of the reasons why we do these studies is to make sure we don’t have any unintended consequences.
“We either have to look toward changing the design, or possibly see if there’s another place to put it that would be more appropriate, or figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Sound barriers are one possibility. But that would add more cost to a facility that is already costing double its original $3 million price tag.
The pickleball place is currently planned for the north end of South Lakes Park, where there used to be soccer fields. That was until the city destroyed a nonprofit youth soccer league serving thousands of community children, by spending $23 million on new state-of-the-art fields at the Stryker Soccer Complex in northeast Wichita — and then privatizing it.
The pickleball facility is supposed to go in on the south side of 47th Street South, slightly east of Meridian, across the street and well within earshot of a neighborhood of about 70 homes.
The “pwock” of a pickleball paddle hitting a pickleball is about 70 decibels, measured at a distance of 100 feet.
That’s about the equivalent of freeway traffic.
But that’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison.
Freeway noise tends to fade into the background because it’s a fairly steady drone. Pickleball noise is higher-pitched and sporadic, hence more annoying.
I can attest to how that works myself. I live a little bit south of the Kellogg freeway out in west Wichita and the only freeway noise that ever bothers me is the random (and thankfully rare) incidents of truckers doing a loud jake-brake.
On the other hand, Mel Hambelton Ford at Kellogg and 119th has loudspeakers that automatically shout threats at anyone who takes a shortcut across their car lot after hours. The first time I heard it, I thought the police were having a standoff with some armed and dangerous criminal on the next street over. It’s way more jarring than the freeway noise.
The first phase of the South Lakes facility is designed with 24 outdoor courts.
At two players per court, that’s 48 people at a time (which would be typical for a tournament) all whacking the ball back and forth at 70 decibels apiece. If they’re playing doubles, that’s 96 people doing it.
On top of that, two of the courts will be for feature matches and have grandstand seating, so add roaring crowds to the mix.
It’s a conundrum.
But it might not be so much of one if attracting that kind of tournament play wasn’t the whole point of the city building a pickleball palace in the first place.
Seriously, you didn’t think City Hall would spend $6 million on a park facility just for local citizens to enjoy a friendly game, did you?
If you did, all I can say is you must be new in town.
