Full-court basketball could return to Sheffield Park after pickleball outrage, county says
East Charlotte residents upset about the conversion of their basketball court into pickleball courts could get basketball back, the county parks department said Wednesday.
Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation will hold a community engagement session in the next 30 days and “discuss adding full court basketball back” to Sheffield Park within 90 days, parks director W. Lee Jones told county commissioners at their Wednesday meeting. Jones did not give a specific date for the community meeting.
The park’s old full-sized basketball court was converted into a pickleball court in early August, WFAE reported, sparking outrage among some neighbors.
Some of those neighbors spoke to the board of county commissioners Wednesday, calling for action to bring basketball back to the park.
“I beg you, please, learn from this mistake, be better,” resident Matt Walsh said. “Don’t break the cultural fabric of our communities.”
Why was Sheffield Park basketball court changed over to pickleball?
The request for pickleball courts at Sheffield Park came from the Eastway Park/Sheffield Park Neighborhood Association, Jones told commissioners Wednesday.
The parks department originally considered turning the park’s tennis court into a pickleball court, he said, but ultimately passed on that idea because that “approach has led to conflicts between tennis players and pickleball players” in other areas and because there aren’t other tennis courts nearby.
Parks staff then “decided to maximize the number of pickleball courts” they could install by turning the park’s lone full-sized basketball court into three pickleball courts. That left the park with just two half-court basketball courts.
‘You devastate my community’
The new pickleball courts have been “wildly popular,” Walsh told commissioners.
The problem, he said, is that “the basketball court you replaced was also wildly popular.”
The full-sized basketball court was a safe space for young people in the neighborhood, near Central Avenue and Eastway Drive, to come together, get exercise and make friends, he said.
“Basketball has shaped these kids profoundly,” he said. “And when you take their courts, you devastate them. You devastate my community.”
Walsh said he would have rather seen the Sheffield Park tennis court, which he said is “hardly ever used,” converted for pickleball rather than the basketball court and that he hopes the parks department will reverse its decision.
“I think we can learn through this, and I think we can be better,” he said.
Sharon Ford, who said she lives just a few hundred yards from the park and plays both pickleball and basketball, told the commission she “literally wept” when she saw what happened to the old full-sized basketball court.
“It was a complete community that was distorted and ripped off,” she said.
Ford said she was pleased to hear the parks department will host a listening session and consider bringing full-court basketball back to her neighborhood.
“I think that we can find a solution where they can coexist and use Sheffield Park as a model for the rest of the county,” she said. “That’s what I want.”
‘No nefarious intent’
Carolyn Millen, president of the Eastway Park/Sheffield Park Neighborhood Association, also spoke Wednesday and said she thinks the parks department acted with good intentions.
She’s hopeful that neighbors and the county can come up with a “win-win solution,” she said.
County Commissioner Mark Jerrell, whose district includes Sheffield Park, said at Wednesday’s meeting that he too believes pickleball and basketball can coexist at the park.
“When we have a miss, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, we still have to own it,” he said. “... I know for a fact that there was no nefarious intent.”
Moving forward, he said, it’s important “to measure twice and cut once” when deciding what’s next for the park.
“This is a golden opportunity for all of us to move forward together,” he said.
This story was originally published September 7, 2023 at 11:24 AM.
