Encinitas residents urge more pickleball time, balanced gym scheduling

Tuesday, Feb. 18 — Dozens of Encinitas residents told the Parks and Recreation Commission on Feb. 18 that rising demand for pickleball is outstripping available indoor gym time at the Encinitas Community Center and is limiting access for older players.

Speakers and frequent players said the city’s current gym calendar gives substantially more hours to basketball than to pickleball and urged the commission and staff to rebalance time, publish participation data and consider modest fees or punch cards to manage demand.

“Open play basketball is available seven days a week while open play pickleball is only available four mornings a week,” said Eric Coolbaugh, a resident who organized a petition. “A petition with 70 plus signatures has been submitted to the parks and rec department requesting that management review the gymnasium usage every six months along with the sign in logs to balance out gym usage across all interests.”

Coolbaugh said sign-in sheets regularly show “40 plus pickleball players,” producing long waits and limited court time for participants, many of whom are seniors.

“Providing more hours of open play during the week will enable groups to organize and spread out the demand, decreasing average wait times,” Coolbaugh said. He also asked the department to honor age-restricted sessions (the 50-plus sessions) to protect less aggressive play for older users.

Other speakers echoed that demand. "I had numbers in the twenties consistently showing up for games, and now we're over 40," said Kelly Kong, a longtime Encinitas resident, who proposed sharing a double gym (one half for pickleball, one for basketball) when groups do not occupy both halves. "So that means a lot of people are sitting and waiting..."

Resident Ron Grimes told commissioners that the national growth of pickleball has been dramatic and local facilities are not keeping pace. He provided what he described as rough data showing a large imbalance in gym allocations: about 52 hours for basketball versus 12 hours for pickleball at the community center, and said some pickleball hours scheduled for March were being reduced further.

Frequent player Daniel Menges asked the commission or staff to publish usage statistics from sign-in sheets so the public can compare participation by sport and better inform scheduling decisions: “We don't see the stats. Somebody sees that... I would be interested, and I think we all should have those stats available to us.”

Commissioners acknowledged the problem and tied it to an existing work-plan item on pickleball and tennis courts. Chair Ritter said the commission has been studying both outdoor and indoor options and noted that a long-term plan to add courts at Encinitas Community Park has been studied and presented to City Council but currently lacks construction funding.

Commissioners and staff discussed potential approaches: a work-group to study facility scheduling and usage that would look across multiuse facilities (not just court sport ad hocs), exploring modest fee or punch-card systems, and improving public access to sign-in and participation data. Recreation staff also noted ongoing grant-funded planning that could support adding outdoor courts but said there is no money currently allocated for construction.

The commission did not adopt new rules at the meeting; commissioners directed staff and ad hoc members to continue studying the issue and consider whether to expand the scope of the pickleball ad hoc to include facility-use and scheduling practices.

The topic drew significant public engagement at the meeting and the commission said it will keep the work-plan item on pickleball/court-use active for the next term while staff and commissioners explore short- and long-term options for additional courts and calendar changes.