ATA's big COURT COMPROMISE proposal

Hi Tennis Friends & Community,

Following our meeting with Parks & Recreation and Pickleball representatives on October 19, the ATA held an emergency meeting with our full board on October 25. We discussed the options presented by Parks & Recreation, and recommended the following actions in the spirit of collaborative compromise. We asked for consideration of these recommendations to be implemented jointly alongside each other:

  1. Add pickleball lines to all 11 public hard city tennis courts that are currently not lined, creating 22 pickleball courts and maintaining 11 hard tennis courts. This maximizes our current public resources for multi-use.

  2. Create an equitable structured play schedule for both sports throughout the week - a collaborative effort by Parks & Recreation, Tennis and Pickleball leadership. This undertaking could be achieved with both signage and technology, minimizing Parks & Recreation overhead to maintain. Aston Park clay courts and the City have already piloted a reservation system with an online app. Black Mountain has implemented a successful day sharing program. Leverage these best practices from locally successful efforts.

This two-prong compromise will provide the following immediate benefits to the community:

  1. Instantly adds to the pickleball inventory with 22 outdoor public courts.

  2. Preserves vital current tennis usage of all current courts, ie Reynolds Middle School tennis usage of Oakley, ATA community outreach programming, and neighborhood usage. All current activities can be folded into a new sharing schedule.

  3. Adding pickleball lines is the least expensive short-term effort to address court demand (5 courts).

  4. Structured access by all racquet sports will help the City also address neighborhood concerns with lights, noise, and parking issues - particularly with the historic neighborhood of Montford.

The ATA recommends additionally long-term that the City pursue a pickleball-only facility at Asheville Recreation Park. We believe all our recommendations will help advance opportunities for both the growing tennis and pickleball communities and minimize disruption on current tennis outreach programs. We recognize the challenges the City has to meet the needs of both growing racquet sports and hope our compromise approach can be implemented. The ATA pledges to help with communication rollout to our tennis enthusiasts on this arrangement.

The pickleball community has been very vocal and active so if you would like your "tennis voice" to be heard on this issue, please send an email before October 30 to the following:

Please let them know you recommend the following implemented jointly alongside each other:

  1. That you support adding pickleball lines to all 11 public hard city tennis courts that are currently not lined, creating 22 pickleball courts and maintaining 11 hard tennis courts.

  2. That you support creating an equitable structured play schedule for both sports throughout the week.

Thank you for your support of tennis over the many years. The ATA is committed to furthering the growth and development of tennis in the Asheville area.

The Board of Directors

Asheville Tennis Association

Asheville Tennis Association