The fate of pickleball in Chilmark will be headed to the court of public opinion.
During a Tuesday evening meeting, the Chilmark Select Board unanimously approved moving forward for review a proposed zoning bylaw amendment to ban pickleball courts, per the request of the Chilmark planning board.
“The appropriate placement of the bylaw within the zoning bylaws will be determined during the public hearing process,” the planning board letter reads.
The planning board had been grappling with whether to have a moratorium on building pickleball courts, or outright banning the game.
Planning board member Peter Cook said at least a dozen letters against pickleball in Chilmark have been submitted to the town. These letters stated concerns over the noise produced by the activity.
“The feeling of the planning board was that a moratorium would be a good idea,” Cook said. “Town counsel said if you want to have a moratorium, the practical way to do that is to announce that there’s a public hearing on a ban.”
According to Cook, the rationalization given by town counsel was that a public hearing to ban the sport would disincentivize constructing a court, since it might need to be removed if the prohibition was implemented. This would, in effect, cause a moratorium to occur while the public hearing process took place.
“It would be the only time to hear any support for pickleball, because we have not had any correspondence [in favor],” Cook said.
Select board member Jim Malkin agreed the best path forward seemed to be the public hearing process, to really know what residents wanted.
“Pickleball is a national issue,” he said. “It’s not just here. We have people who are against the noise. We have people who are for the game.”
When select board member Marie Larsen asked how many pickleball courts were in the town, select board chair Bill Rossi said there weren’t many, if any.
A point raised during the meeting was whether people could still use a tennis court to play pickleball if a ban was set, which is a question the town would need to explore.
No date has yet been set for the public hearing.
