Qualicum Beach finds a new proposed location for pickleball courts

Drummond said he has seen a rise of 160 per cent in people interested in playing pickleball in the community. Photo: Aleksander Saks / Unsplash

Pickleball has been a hot topic over the last couple of years for council members on Vancouver Island. From both the growth in popularity and the noise it can cause, towns like Qualicum Beach are finding ways to embrace the sport.

On Wednesday, January 17th Qualicum Beach Council designated a proposed new location for a pickleball court. This comes after members of the community and the Qualicum Beach Pickleball Club spoke to the council in March 2023 about the need for more community courts. Town staff then found four locations that could be a good fit.

After analyzing the four locations, it was found that the best location would be near the skateboard park by the Civic Centre. this new location would allow for four courts to be built. 

Currently, the only pickleball court in Qualicum Beach is at the tennis courts near the Qualicum Beach Legion where they have to share the space with tennis players.

Peter Drummond is the co-president of the Qualicum Beach Pickleball Club. He said he has been playing the sport since 2016 after mostly playing squash.

He said pickleball is the perfect sport for the Qualicum Beach area and has seen a rise of 160 per cent in people interested in playing.

“Well, it's a very popular sport is it's a, it's perfect for this area,” Drummond said. “it's a lovely transition down from tennis for people who don't have the energy or the too old to manage the tennis balls and chase around.”

Drummond said out of the four proposed locations he said he is fairly happy with the chosen one but is a little worried about how the trees in the surrounding area could affect the court with the debris.

“We don't need any trees around there, and I'm actually a tree person. I love trees and I respect the need for trees to be in a town,” Drummond said. “But if a sense of being practical about it, if you have trees within 50 feet of the pickleball courts, you're going to be faced with a problem of sweeping up the debris off those four courts.”

As the current plans for the upgrades to the skateboard park have not been shared yet Drummond also mentioned that he's unsure what the spacing between the skateboard park and the courts could look like. But he said he believes there should not be any issue with the skateboard park and pickleball courts.

“But I see there should be no conflict between the skateboard park and the pickleball. They can operate side by side. I don't think the noise factor is going to be a problem there,” Drummond said. “So that's a big thing for us because we don't want to get into a situation where residents or others you know, are objecting to our play.” 

Pickleball has caused a bit of a racket around Vancouver Island in recent years with the amount of noise a single game can make.

Drummond mentioned how in Oak Bay, pickleball courts had to be moved further away from the neighbouring houses due to noise complaints to the municipality. 

Also in Victoria, certain courts in the James Bay area were prohibited from playing the sport due to noise complaints from neighbours in spring 2022. Players still had options of playing at different courts in the area that were farther away from homes

As well Nanaimo has had its fair share of pickleball problems. Back in December 2023, the City of Nanaimo voted to use $518,000 to create eight new outdoor pickleball courts at Beban Park to replace the current courts at Beaufort Park that have gotten many noise complaints.

At a regular council meeting following the vote to move the courts, Nanaimo resident David Maloney spoke to council about the noise coming from the pickleball courts at Beaufort Park.

“It is the only sports facility in Nanaimo that does not close on statutory holidays. Since the end of the pandemic, it is open seven days a week, all day long. Until March of this year. It was open from 6 a.m. till 11 p.m. and people took absolute advantage of that,” Maloney said. “The courts themselves, there's six of them, they're about nine meters from my property line. It is all day at this time of year, the way it stands right now. We get one hour of daylight on Wednesday and one hour of daylight on Sunday that is noise-free.”

Luckily, Drummond mentioned that the proposed location of the courts in Qualicum Beach should be far enough away from neighbouring homes that noise from the courts should also not be a problem.

“We're going to be a long way if that's the site that's chosen which it certainly seems to be now we're a long way from residences you know it's about 300 yards and there are trees around that area too. So I think that that should not be a problem at all,” Drummond said.

Drummond said he is looking forward to getting the new courts so the club can finally establish themselves as a pickleball facility at operates on a regular schedule.

He also hopes to create a website for people to learn more about the club and the courts to welcome more people to drop in and play with them

“Because it's really nice to have visitors to come in and just check in with the local community to see where pickleball is played. Because a lot of people do that. If you go to Vernon or even Nanaimo and Victoria, people do that, just drop in. So this is what our vision will be eventually, just to have a drop-in,” Drummond said.

Now with the proposed location selected the club can start fundraising the money for the new courts. Qualicum Beach Council say they will be allocating funds to provide matching funding for this project.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.