by Garth Meyer
Pickleball has been cleared for entry at Alta Vista Park.
Four courts will be striped on Court 1 of the tennis facility, approved by the Redondo Beach city council Aug. 12 after they took in the results of a sound study.
Run by Yorke Engineering, the study was commissioned after residents of South Juanita Avenue – above the hill along the park – expressed concerns about the plastic-balls-hitting-graphite sound as a nuisance.
Yorke and the city’s community services department assembled pickleball players and tested Court 1 and Court 2, representing the south end of the eight tennis courts; Yorke reporting that sound levels were below the minimum generally considered noticeable outdoors.
“No significant noise impacts at either location,” the firm concluded.
City councilmembers nonetheless discussed sound-blocking measures, deciding to spend $15,000 to line the courts’ fences with Pickleblok – a paneled system to reduce sound.
“I think the noise study was valuable,” said City Councilman Brad Waller, who was on site for it. “Pickleball is, it’s noticeable, you hear it. No matter what the study says, noise mitigation is a must.”
Part of the evaluation indicated that tennis at the location was louder than pickleball.
The study focused on LEQ sound, which measures decibels over time – duration, intensity, frequency – as opposed to LMAX sound, which tracks the single loudest moment of a given study period.
Tests included a look at 24-hour ambient noise, and 20 minutes of pickleball play, done with use of a Public Works boom truck parked on Juanita Avenue, after no residents could be reached to ask to wire it from a house deck, as explained by Elizabeth Hause, Redondo Beach community services director.
The Redondo Beach city council previously set aside $90,000 to stripe four pickleball courts and resurface the existing eight tennis courts.
City Manager Mike Witzansky noted that the non-see through Pickleblok will not go up on all four sides of the court(s), due to safety and security matters. Pickleblok was chosen over two other less expensive, less aesthetic options.
One of them “sort of looks like the inside of a U-haul,” Waller said.
With the results of the noise study, the project has now cleared CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) rules.
Councilman Waller made a motion to proceed with the Pickleblok and to add more vegetation on the hillside next to the courts, adjacent to Juanita Avenue.
“We just need to repair irrigation and do some planting,” Witzansky said.
The city chose Yorke Engineering from three firms which submitted a proposal for the sound study contract.
City councilmembers heard minimal input from neighbors at the Aug. 12 meeting.
“I don’t know if one side (of sound-blocking) will be enough,” said one, Bob Brown. “We’ll see. If it’s noisy, then the residents will say something.” ER
Well, the people adjacent got screwed. That noise is NASTY and isn’t measured by in the noise studies. If somebody poked you with a toothpick once an hour, it would be a tiny, tiny part of your overall day. But is would sound like peckerball none-the-less.
Good … maybe theywill move then