Arlington County will continue with plans to build dedicated pickleball courts at the Walter Reed Community Center.
The county had mulled pausing the project, putting the question to community members in a survey this spring.
“Respondents were slightly more in favor of continuing the project, though it should be noted that respondents who identified as players are more in favor of continuing and those self-identifying as neighbors were more in favor of pausing,” Dept. of Parks and Recreation planning director Erik Beach told the Board on Tuesday.
DPR will forge ahead because the sport has health benefits and the center needs renovations either way, he said.
“The county firmly believes in the benefits of providing places for its residents to receive the physical and mental health benefits of being outside, recreating and socializing,” Beach said. “DPR has observed in real-time and validated through professional literature the opportunity provided by pickleball to be a catalyst for those physical and mental benefits.”
The county has selected designs that would:
- increase the distance between future courts near 16th Street S. and residential homes to a distance of about 170 feet
- add acoustic fencing to both sets of courts and landscaping in between
- add a deck to protect a large existing tree and provide respite space
- improve circulation for people with disabilities
- increase parking spaces by four
- resurface the basketball courts
An online survey about the proposal is open now through Dec. 8 and could inform tweaks DPR makes before selecting a contractor by the third quarter of 2024.
Columbia Heights Civic Association President Ron Haddox, meanwhile, is skeptical of the most recent survey. In a letter to the Board, he said the survey circulated in pro-pickleball online forums nationally and internationally, attaching screenshots.
He says pickleballers recommended people submit responses multiple times across platforms and identify as county or 22204 residents, “even if they were not.”
“This obviously concerns us and calls into question the genuineness of at least some portion of the feedback received,” he said.
Beach told the Board that DPR tried to improve the quality of the data by removing several hundred comments from people at least 10 miles away from the community center. In the age of virtual private networks, Haddox says, this may not have done much.
“The use of DPR’s anonymous survey methodology and subsequent efforts to enhance its usefulness have very likely resulted in skewed results that have limited usefulness other than to let the county know that nearly EVERYONE on BOTH sides of this issue is against the idea of permanent courts at WRCC,” he said in a letter to the County Board.
