This Marin County city is seeing clashes over pickleball. Here's how it's trying to solve them

On a recent Sunday morning, approximately two dozen players served and volleyed on pickleball courts in Larkspur's Piper Park. The lively games played out next to two empty tennis courts. The discrepancy in use reflects the broader shift in the Bay Area as more people play America's fastest-growing sport - and the growing tension between the two groups of players.

The eight pickleball courts at Piper are the only ones in this city of about 13,000 people. They're temporary courts carved out of two tennis courts that have been restriped and outfitted with temporary nets.

Some parts of the week, the courts are used for pickleball, other times, the eight pickleball courts revert back to two tennis courts. Pickleball players have been lobbying hard for Larkspur officials to devote more courts to their beloved sport and make them permanent. Supporters say hundreds of town residents participate in open play, in which participants randomly rotate into doubles matches.

The town's parks and recreation commission agreed to turn one tennis court at Piper Park into four permanent pickleball courts and that work is expected to go ahead this fall. But those four permanent courts were in exchange for making the other three courts into strictly tennis courts, meaning four occasional pickleball courts would be lost. That angered players and in response city officials have created a working group to address the need for more courts.

The working group - made up of four tennis and four pickleball players - will release its recommendation by the end of June, which will then be voted on by the city council.

"People are very passionate," said City Manager Dan Schwarz, who is overseeing the working group. "So before it goes to the council, I wanted to convene a group to help me figure it out."

The clash that led to the working group is just the latest Bay Area dispute to erupt over the sport. Players in one San Francisco neighborhood protested park and rec policies over forbidden courts and in another neighbors sued a fitness club for converting space to courts that they said generated unbearable noise. A survey of possible sites for courts in San Francisco upset golfers and volleyball players. One Marin town contemplated banning the sport in private backyards. And plans for a private pickleball club met fierce resistance in the East Bay.

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The working group has met twice so far to hammer out an agreement that works for two communities that are often at odds.

Pickleball player Eric Bowen, who serves in the working group, said members have so far agreed to share the border court between the two permanent tennis courts and the one court to be made permanent for pickleball.

"There seems to be consensus that it should be mixed use," Bowen said. "This is a fantastic solution."

Bowen said he hopes this would calm tensions between the groups, adding that he's seen pickleball players be "inappropriate and rude" to tennis players.

No tennis players in the working group have identified themselves so the Chronicle was not able to get a sense of how the negotiations are going from their perspective.

Nicole Crncich, a lifelong tennis player who now plays pickleball, said the sport is growing and that trend needs to be addressed. She said more than 250 players are on a WhatsApp text channel and often 50 want to play at any given time on a weekend or weekday afternoon.

Crncich, who is a member of the working group, said on some weekends, there are "huge lines of people waiting to play."

She added that pickleball is taught in middle and high schools now, growing the base of players. "We've got people out here, ages 8 to 83," she said.

Creating permanent pickleball courts will reduce wear and tear from the temporary nets rolling off and on. It will also eliminate confusion when pickleballers take over a tennis court during undesignated times of play, or when tennis players reclaim the courts for their leagues.

The tennis community, which Crncich is still part of, is smaller and quieter, she said, but in addition to the courts at Piper, they have two more across town.

Tennis players Samantha Kozub and Nic Dray were at Piper park playing on a recent Sunday and were unaware of the possible changes in the court configurations until a Chronicle reporter mentioned them. They were not thrilled with the idea of losing a tennis court.

"Too much pickleball," Dray said. "One more court should be tennis."

They said they tried to switch to pickleball at one point but they weren't that into the sport and reverted to tennis.

"We come every weekend at noon to play because that's when the pickleball players go to lunch," Kozub said.

"We love these courts because they're free and the surfaces are better," she added.

Whatever the working group decides, the pickleball players say their community, which has formed on the courts and on a redwood deck under the shade of an oak tree next to it, will endure and may become more organized in the future.

"We have elected to stay informal," Bowen said. "We will probably form the Piper Park Pickleball Club at some point."

Crncich, the tennis player turned pickleballer, concurred about the lovely community.

"I've never had a greater sense of community than with this sport," she said.

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