The issue of finding an appropriate design for the pickleball and basketball courts at the corner of Emery Lane and Townsend Avenue is volleying between the Boothbay Harbor planning and select boards. It now appears residents and visitors will not be able to walk onto freshly laid courts and shoot hoops or whack pickleballs back and forth until next spring.

The boards are still in the process of approving final plans for the landscaping that will screen the new courts from Townsend Avenue and prevent stray pickleballs and basketballs from rolling into the street.

Pickleball is one of the country’s fastest-growing sports with 2.5 million people playing casually and regularly. Merritt Blakeslee, Boothbay Harbor resident and pickleball enthusiast, pointed out it is a sport that appeals to a demographic well-represented in the Boothbay region.

“Many of the people who play pickleball are former racket sports players who, for one reason or another, can no longer play racquetball, squash, or tennis,” said Blakeslee. “It puts fewer demands on elbows, hips, and knees, for example, and in this community, there is a very active and enthusiastic group of pickleballers.”

The group plays year round three times a week indoors at the Boothbay Region YMCA and twice a week outdoors in the summer and early fall. Blakeslee stressed that newcomers — including those who have never played the sport — are always welcome. As the athletes pack up their outdoor summer gear, the attendance dwindles slightly, but Blakeslee said that during the summer it is not unusual, both indoors and out, for the group to have to set up a third court when so many show up that some are forced to wait on the sidelines.

The current outdoor courts are on the Boothbay Region High School tennis courts. The group sets up collapsible nets and marks the boundaries with removable plastic line indicators.

“We talked at the beginning of the summer with the school district about putting tape lines down for the summer season while awaiting the completion of the new pickleball courts at Emery Lane,” Blakeslee said. “They kindly consented to let us do that, but when we tested the two types of tape that we were proposing to use, both of them left a significant residue, so we and the school district agreed, mutually, that that wasn't a good idea.”

Blakeslee said the plastic line indicators which permit play on the BRHS tennis courts are unsatisfactory because they are imprecise. Like tennis and most other field and court sports, the game is defined by boundaries and the rules surrounding them, and the plastic line indicators only approximate the boundaries.

“But many of the Boothbay Harbor pickleballers love being outdoors enough to put up with that drawback,” said Blakeslee. “That's one of the reasons, though, that all of us are excited about getting the new pickleball court at Emery Lane.”

The reason for the most recent delay in completing the new courts may have arisen from a misunderstanding of the sport.

“I understand that there was a concern expressed by the Planning Board about stray balls, balls hit from the pickleball court onto Townsend Avenue,” said Blakeslee. “I believe that the Board of Selectmen has been able to explain to the Planning Board that the appropriate frame of reference for thinking about the stray ball problem is not tennis but pickleball.”

Blakeslee said he did his own experiment: He stood at the baseline of one of BRHS's tennis courts, aimed tennis balls at the far fence, and was able to hit them over with his tennis racket consistently.

“Tennis balls are pressurized, they go a long way,” explained Blakeslee. “But I tried the same thing with a pickleball. Standing on the baseline and aiming at the far fence, I did manage to get the pickleball over the tennis net, but not much more because a pickleball is hollow with air holes that slow it down. It's a wiffleball. I was able to hit it only about 20 yards in the air. So the tennis model for thinking about the 'pickleball-stray-ball-problem' is the wrong frame of reference.”

Despite the latest wrinkle in the plan to have the courts and landscaping done by this fall, the pickleballers are not chomping at the bit — Blakeslee said that from their point of view, the new delay is not a disappointment since the pickleballers pack up their outside equipment in the fall and return in the late spring.

Town Manager Tom Woodin said he and the selectmen are also frustrated at how long this project is taking to get off the ground. Woodin said much of the reason is that it took some time to sort out the public's wishes for the old tennis courts property.

“Once that got fleshed out and some conceptual designs began to take shape, more input changed the scope of the project such as adding pickleball courts, redesigning the parking lot as well as beautifying that entire stretch of Route 27,” explained Woodin in an email. “The DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) permitting takes some time since this area is adjacent to wetlands on Emery Lane. It was not foreseen that the Planning Board would table making a decision on it until we created a vegetation plan that they could review.”

Beyond those stumbling blocks was the need to secure a landscape architect to design a vegetation plan that meets DEP requirements as well as the town's. 

“Had the project not changed in scope as much as it did and require so many moving parts and involvement,” said Woodin. “It would have already taken place.”

Woodin said the plans still have yet to be approved by the planning board, but that he is confident it will be at its next meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 11.

Said Blakeslee, “We understand that this has to be done right. We're willing to be patient and make sure that it's done according to the rules and to everyone's satisfaction — and we're very, very excited about the end product.”