Aventura residents hold protest against pickleball courts
MIAMI - Chanting "Save our parks!" some Aventura residents gathered in front of their City Hall seeking to stop a project that already started construction, pickleball courts in Founders Park South.
"We're not against pickleball, we're happy for them to put courts somewhere else," said Ariel Penzer. She and many Aventura residents say the price for the distraction is losing green space in the city.
While pickleball has taken the nation by storm, in the city of Aventura it's still at the center of bitter conflicts for limited space, noise and pickleball players in their backyards.
"This is not supposed to be a pickleball area," said Jeffery Schwagder, who has attended three City Commission meetings for the same reason, to state his disenchantment with the construction which started last June. He says local politicians did not consult residents about converting green space into pickleball courts.
"In the eyes of all the residents, they did it in a very sneaky manner, most residents had no idea this was happening," said Schwagder.
Meanwhile, Penzer said: "There is an agreement protecting that land, the city was supposed to maintain that land as passive park."
Since the subject was not on Tuesday's agenda, they waited to address it at the end of the session. As established, the City Mayor did not respond to comments, but he did talk to CBS News Miami.
"We inherited that (the conversion of a community garden to new racquet sports complex), it was already approved we had nothing to do with that," said Howard Weinberg, Mayor of the City of Aventura. He said that the previous commission approved the expansion program of creating pickleball and tennis courts in South Founders Park.
"Everyone says pickleball, pickleball if you look at the construction pad, 70% will be for tennis, 30% for pickleball," said Weinberg, who is in favor of the project.
"As a commission, our job obviously is what is best to the entire city, we are only 3.2 square miles, we are very limited. We have nowhere for our kids to play tennis, we owe that to our taxpayers."