I was wondering when the local TV media was going to pick up the pickle the YMCA of Greater Brandywine organization, Upper Main Line YMCA and Easttown Township have found themselves in. Boomchakalaka, today was the day and this was literally just on 6 ABC Action News Philadelphia a bit ago.
Yeah whatever, it took me by surprise and the beginning of the video is wobbly. The report was completely unexpected. I can’t believe someone other than myself and Savvy Main Line is actually covering this. I have no objection to pickleball per se, no matter what people want to say, but I did not like the way the neighbors have been treated to date.
Below are links from just 3 meetings where pickleball and the Upper Main Line YMCA (UMLY) were discussed:
As I reported on May 17th, the neighbors are taking UMLY etc to court. I do not feel the neighbors wanted to do this but they were not being heard were they? And they were not being heard for a long time, weren’t they? And now media is catching on.
Once again the peeved and pickleball aggrieved will say anyone supporting the neighbors and the affected neighbors are horrible, terrible people. Well maybe if UMLY which now says they want to be good neighbors had been good neighbors in the beginning, this would not be where people are now, correct? And the YMCA of Greater Brandywine has been heavy handed before in dealing with people, haven’t they?
And people will say what do neighbors think buying a house near a YMCA, but to them I say oh really? UMLY is located in a historic resource…in a residential district, so wouldn’t common sense dictate they should try harder?
Residents are entitled to a reasonable expectation of quiet enjoyment, and people might like playing pickleball at UMLY but the residents do indeed have to be considered. And they were not being considered. Neighbors have apparently been trying to deal with this for a couple of years? These neighbors are far nicer than UMLY deserves. Personally I would have given them six months.
Anyway, now the news is settling into covering this. UMLY and Easttown sadly, could have avoided this, couldn’t they have?
A little birdie told me the other day that pickleball had gotten very quiet at the Upper Main Line YMCA in Berwyn.
And indeed it has.
As previously documented and witnessed at many meetings in Easttown Township, the neighbors have been trying to see an amicable solution that is fair to everyone, not just the Upper Main Line YMCA (UMLY.)
This has been going on for a couple of years, right? And I remember from watching the meetings that the neighbors tried really hard to just be good neighbors and get treated fairly and no one heard them, so now they have filed suit and they have a shark as an attorney.
They have hired I think one of the best land-use lawyers that exists in this area, Phil Rosensweig. He was one of the seven commissioners in Lower Merion many years ago who helped stop eminent domain for private gain. As a matter of fact, he wrote the ordinance revoking its potential use.
Buckle up buttercups, this will be interesting.
UMLY is part of the YMCA of Greater Brandywine family. And the YMCA of Greater Brandywine is no secret to contretemps at times including prior pickleball issues, correct? It was at the Lionville Branch according to a Daily Local article, correct?
Easttown Township should have been better with this issue. Truthfully, Tredyffrin Township a couple of years ago was very proactive on the behalf of neighbors dealing with pickleball issues. And I believe that now today, Pickleball and residence are coexisting fairly peacefully in that municipality.
And just for the record, I’m not against pickleball. I have a lot of friends who play it, but I am also cognizant of the fact that a lot of times neighbors get railroaded over issues where they deserve better treatment.
UMLY could have avoided all of this, couldn’t they have?
Well I know this has been brewing a while but wowza. I feel sorry for the neighbors. I don’t play pickleball, so it means nothing to me. I have friends who play and love it. However I do know that it is unusually noisy.
I did a little nosing around and found out this has been going on for a while (as in more than a year? Maybe two years almost?) AND if you listen to the entire meeting somewhere a neighbor says pickleball courts were built without permits? I did a screen record of the meeting because Easttown has their meeting on You Tube but unlisted so that makes me think they could disappear so….
I found the Upper Main Line Y response ineffective. I am told that the Brandywine Y (which I guess owns them now?) has or has had similar issues? I remember a big issue when they wanted to put pickleball in Lionville a year or so ago.
So things about the meeting that made me laugh out loud: kind of asking Eattown to pay for or pay towards noise mitigation with some special fencing? Umm I am still wondering HOW they built the courts without permits?
Back to the meeting. The residents were well spoken and polite. Many of the Upper Main Line YMCA (“UMLY”) supporters and patrons…less so.
One person, can’t recall her name, was as rude and dismissive as could be…and is the apparent chair of the Willistown Planning Commission? Well we all know how Willistown residents get so wonder how she would be feeling if it was next door to her ?
Some of the patrons of UMLY were pleasant-ish and polite, as I mentioned. But so many of the others? Asshats with a misplaced sense of entitlement. I did not hear any neighbor say take away the pickleball courts, only that the noise HAS to be dealt with. Some of the most immediate neighbors, like on Longcourse Lane (a great street, incidentally) are showing by my research as being in Tredyffrin. So accomplishing anything is harder because UMLY is in Easttown.
Here is where UMLY is on the zoning map. Notice the R-1 AKA Residential:
Here is the another attachment – a land use table- I found in e code 360 on zoning:
So again, not a zoning professional. Not an attorney. But I can read. And I have to ask if UMLY is playing a game they can win? And yes I suggested a land use lawyer to a friend to pass along to the residents. Ask the residents in Narberth and even Willistown who have used this man and they will tell you worth every penny.
I added the lighting component of the zoning code because that is also a consideration. Hypothetically, lights might be on later than needed in part to liability concerns. However, I also have to ask WHY those courts are not locked up at the close of every day and even seasonally when it’s too cold to play pickleball or tennis for example? I am asking because residents said at this meeting where pickleball was continuing AFTER operating hours at UMLY? And I will note at present in Radnor an elite private girls school is being rude to neighbors with super daylight bright lights at night shining into windows of neighbors. They lock their courts but say they have to keep lights on and they are not down shielded so I have been told you can wake up at 1 AM and it’s like noon. That is light pollution and that also has serious environmental impacts. It affects bird migration and other things.
Residents are entitled to a reasonable expectation of quiet enjoyment, and people might like playing pickleball at UMLY but the residents do indeed have to be considered. And they are not being considered. Neighbors have apparently been trying to deal with this for a couple of years? These neighbors are far nicer than UMLY deserves. Personally I would have given them six months.
UMLY needs to be told a cautionary tale: the tale of Dink City Pickleball that opened for a brief time at Valley Forge Military & College….and closed because the neighbors in Tredyffrin had enough of the noise rather quickly.
Dink City Pickleball was forced to close due to a violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. The business received a notice of violation in July 2023, giving them 30 days to appeal or cease operations. No appeal was filed, and the business announced that August 14, 2023 would be its last day.
Finding the holy grail – a place to play pickle – just got easier, Main Line.
Two enterprising locals just opened what they say is the largest pickleball facility in the northeast: Dink City Pickleball at Valley Forge Military Academy & College.
And unlike YMCAs, country clubs, and Malvern’s new Bounce Pickleball, you pay only for your reserved court time. No need for a membership….With the tagline “community at play,” Dink City is more than cushioned courts, painted lines and regulation nets.
“It’s all the social things around pickleball that we offer – that’s the differentiator,” Norton tells SAVVY.
Think food trucks, corn hole and music on weekends, plus lessons, clinics, leagues, tournaments, pro shop, private events and birthday parties….“I love getting out on the court and getting a good sweat on,” says Norton who’s played pickle for nine years. “But just as much as that, I like hanging out with friends and family afterwards, maybe having a beverage or a taco or something from a food truck. That enhances the experience for everybody.”
The courts have lights for evening play and will be available year-round. “There are some hard core pickle-ballers out there who will play in the cold,” Norton says. “It’s like paddle – once you get moving, you warm up a bit.”…The two decided to cash in on the craze but make it community-oriented rather than an exclusive club. A real estate broker connected them to Valley Forge Military, which has been seeking new revenue streams to offset falling enrollment. (Since 2010, VFMAC has sold 20 acres to Eastern College, five acres to Bentley Homes, and most recently, 23 acres to developer Rockwell Custom for a new senior living complex.)
“The quickest win,” the partners say, was repurposing the lightly-used tennis courts on Radnor Road in the Tredyffrin section of campus. They loved the “heart of Wayne” location – a stone’s throw from St. David’s Golf Club and close to multiple schools, campuses and country clubs.
And if all goes well, outdoor courts in Wayne could just be the beginning for Dink City. VFMAC is in early talks to turn its equestrian center into a sports complex that might include Dink’s first indoor courts. Craft and Norton are also looking at properties in and around Philly and Maryland – although they haven’t yet quit their day jobs.
Yeah and then a few weeks later, it was sayonara Dink City, again I refer to Savvy Main Line:
IN A PiCKLE IN RADNOR. Just two months after they cut the ribbon on a popular new 16-court pickleball facility at Valley Forge Military Academy, Dink City Pickleball is closing.
The trouble began with a “handful of complaints” about noise from neighbors, according to Tredyffrin Zoning Officer Erin McPherson. When she investigated, she found the commercial business was operating in violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. She sent a notice of violation on July 14, giving Dink City 30 days to appeal for zoning relief or cease operations. No appeal was filed, she says, and today Dink City announced that Monday Aug. 14 will be its last day.
“This is not the end,” wrote owners Bryson Craft and Robbie Norton in an email. “Dink City will be back better and stronger than ever.”
The partners – both young local fathers and pickleball enthusiasts – had leased four lightly used tennis courts from Valley Forge Military Academy and invested big $$ converting them into a state-of-the-art pickleball center with leagues, clinics, “Dink and Drinks” nights, summer camps and more. (See our story in the June SAVVY – link in profile and scroll down.)
“We tried to resolve the issue with the township but they wouldn’t accept our proposals,” co-owner Craft tells SAVVY.
Dink City will refund Open Play memberships and any account balances as of Aug. 15
Pickleball noise is a real problem. There is even a group on Facebook devoted to it – all areas of US and Canada:
IMPULSIVE/IMPACT SOUNDS: By definition, an impact sound is simply the solid collision between two objects, such as hammering, dropped objects, a door slamming shut, metal-to-metal impacts, etc. Impulse sound is defined as the product of a force and duration with which the force is applied. More specifically, impulse is the time integral of force from an initial time to the final time, the force being time dependent and equal to zero before the initial time and after the final time (ANSI S1.1–2013). – ……. The measurement of impulse noise is becoming increasingly common within the industrial hygiene field. Issues for measuring impulse noise issues include dynamic range, frequency range, anti-aliasing, microphone/preamplifier/power supply, sampling rates, etc.. Whether an SLM, dosimeter, or computer-based recording system is used, good impulse noise measurements are not trivial to make. The limits of the microphones may be reached. The influence of nonlinear acoustics can dramatically affect the measurements. – Taken from The Noise Manual, 6th Edition.
Like many pickleball players, when I hear (another) story about how noisy pickleball is, I simply roll my eyes and spew a few snarky remarks about how some people just can’t let others have any fun.
So, you can imagine my response when I discovered there was a Facebook Group called the “Pickleball Noise Relief Group.”
My eyes rolled back, my lips curled, and I prepared to write something blasting a bunch of Karens for wanting to shut down pickleball.However, after a few conversations with the group’s leader, Nalini Lasiewicz, and actually listening to what they had to say, I realized that automatically labeling them as a pickleball hate group that just wanted to ruin our sport was completely off base.
And my preconceived notions about people complaining about pickleball noise couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Basically, I was … I am wrong. And so are many of us who think that pickleball doesn’t actually have a noise problem.
Because for these people and many others who are too afraid to speak up, it’s a serious problem that’s causing them health and mental issues.
Pickleball players: it’s time we admit that there is a pickleball noise problem.
Meet Nalini Lasiewicz
Nalini Lasiewicz is a resident of a Los Angeles suburb who first got involved with pickleball noise issues during the COVID lockdown….Nalini says this exact scenario has played out countless times since she became an administrator of the Facebook Group created by Rob Mastroianni, a Cape Cod resident who had to sell his family home due to the noise becoming too much to deal with.
The group is dedicated to finding and supporting others across the country in similar situations. For many, it’s a platform that allows them to find ways to regain the peace they’ve lost in their neighborhoods.
Look, NO ONE IS SAYING NO PICKLEBALL. But UMLY needs to do right by the neighbors. And that doesn’t mean Easttown Township and taxpayers should be paying for noise mitigation. And If Tredyffrin shut it down at Valley Forge Military Academy and College, zoning is not so different from municipality to municipality given that the Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of PA guides it all, correct?
I have no horse in this race, but I have been watching pickleball issues out of curiosity for a while. So Easttown and Tredyffrin residents near UMLY, I hear you and I am not hearing anything other than wanting your environment back. You aren’t being unreasonable. But UMLY and Upper Main Line Y? They are. And still I ask…how did they build pickleball courts without permits if that is indeed true?
Easttown Township needs to deal with this and not play kick the can. Tredyffrin Township could step into help residents if the supervisors can stop contemplating their collective navels long enough, yes? Expectation of quiet enjoyment? It’s a real thing. So pickleballers? This is a real issue. It’s not the noise you all are hearing, it’s what the residents are hearing and that is NOT the same thing.
Pay attention to the Model Noise Ordinance video I embedded here. They talk about the expensive anti-noise fences/barriers. They are discussing how it doesn’t work….
Ok Christmas is not going to decorate itself around here. Have a good night.
