KelownaNow Apr 22, 2025
The writer of the letter (I’m disheartened that Kelowna pickleball facility could cost $780 a year, April 17, 2025) seems to have hit the pickleball on the racket with reference to the following: “What protections are in place to ensure our members are not simply being leveraged to rally public support for rezoning and project approvals?” and “But it feels like our club’s credibility and unity may be used to serve an agenda that’s ultimately profit-driven, not player-focused.” This sadly is likely the case. The developer originally wanted to put warehouses over the whole golf course even though Kelowna has vacant industrial land.
The pickelballers just want to have a covered place to play but at $780/year this turns it into an elite sport based on average pickleball costs. The pickeballers may not realize that 480 Penno Road is sensitive green space that operates as flood protection to the city and it is currently a walkable golf course that has been affordable for all ages and economic brackets of golfers for over 30 years. Now, if this development is approved by the mayor and council, this is going to result in them losing their sport facility. This is not “perfect” nor a “win win” for the golfers or the environment.
The pickleball courts would also require, at 480 Penno Road, the soils to be compressed, filled, and paved and be substantially higher than the adjacent land to prevent it from flooding. As well, by blocking the groundwater flow, the adjacent land will be flooded including the land in the Agricultural Land Reserve that surrounds most of the golf course.
Photo credit: Denciti
The city is going to provide 12 paved pickleball courts for the new PRC so it seems that the city should work with these pickelballers who want a covering dome to play in the winter. Perhaps the city can support portable domes so all of the pickleball courts at the PRC can be covered in the winter as the pickelballers do like to play outside in the summer months. The PRC isn’t right downtown but the pickleball courts currently at the PRC are well used so they must be conveniently located. If they had portable domes, these would tie them over until the new ones are built and then they can be used on the new PRC pickleball courts.
This link describes the potable domes: Sports and Recreation | Broadwell Air Domes – Global Leader in Air Domes. It states that they are often used over courts such as pickleball and can set up and taken down every year. Now that is a “win win”!
The writer states that pickleball players voices “matter at city hall.”
Different people play different sports and the golfers voices matter, too. The city doesn’t have even one municipal course so the city can buy Kelowna Springs (or expropriate it for flood protection) and support affordable golf for all ages of players in Kelowna. Now this would be a “win win!”
Susan Ames
Kelowna
