Planning Board Sends Pickleball Court Engineer Back for Noise, Access Revisions

WEST NEWBURY -- July 15, 2025, West Newbury Planning Board opens pickleball court hearing with laundry list of revisions for engineer. The board held the first session of a public hearing Tuesday on a town application to build two courts adjacent to the Action Cove Playground at 381 Main Street, then continued it unanimously to August 5 after members and abutters raised concerns about acoustic fencing coverage on only one of four sides, ADA access from the parking lot, parking competition with the heavily used playground, and the lack of a formal path connecting a secondary baseball-field lot to the site. Engineer Rich Williams of Williams Engineering said he would bring questions about extended acoustic treatment, signage content and location, ADA detailing, and path feasibility back to the project working group. Residents on Fadley Drive and Bachelor Street testified that recreational noise already travels clearly through the wooded buffer and that pickleball's distinctive high-frequency sound warrants more protection than a single acoustic blanket panel provides. "Pickleball courts, that isn't where the noise complaints come from in general," Planning Board member Rob Phillips said. "There's towns that have gone to great lengths to try to accommodate abutters." The board also voted unanimously to add the town-owned Craven property, parcel R2-35, to the Housing Production Plan as a potential housing location, clearing a procedural hurdle for its consideration as an MBTA Communities Act overlay district site.