South Ogden removes rogue pickleball court from neighborhood lot

A backyard-style pickleball court with a basketball hoop and a pergola is coming down in South Ogden, after city officials decided the space behind homes in the Fox Chase neighborhood was built on city property without a permit.

For roughly five years, the court sat in place near the subdivision, but the city now plans to restore the land instead of letting the unofficial setup stand. The move puts a hard edge on a familiar pickleball story: not every new court arrives with a ribbon cutting, and not every community will accept play spaces that appear first and ask questions later.

The dispute also shows how differently South Ogden treats the sport when it is built inside the rules. City parks materials say South Ogden has nine parks and that its parks can include pickleball, tennis and basketball courts. The city lists Burch Creek Park Pickleball Courts at 4300 Madison Ave. and says those pickleball and tennis courts are first-come, first-served. On the recreation side, South Ogden says it will hold pickleball leagues and tournaments and notes that court lights automatically turn off at 10 p.m. during the season.

That official support is visible on the calendar as well. South Ogden’s website lists a “Pickleball Tournament - SOD 2026” for June 12, a sign that the city is still investing in organized play even as it removes the unauthorized court in Fox Chase. The contrast is stark: sanctioned courts in a park setting on one side, a makeshift residential court on city land on the other.

The issue had already surfaced in public comments. A South Ogden City Council work session packet shows Manny Cypers, representing the Fox Chase Homeowner’s Association, and Bryan Benard, a Fox Chase resident, both speaking about a sports court built on city property. That put the neighborhood complaint into a formal city setting before the removal decision was made.

The larger lesson reaches beyond one lot in Weber County. Utah’s Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman handles property-rights education and dispute resolution, a reminder that boundary issues can quickly turn into land-use conflicts when residents, associations and local government disagree over where a court belongs. In South Ogden, the message is plain: pickleball has a place in the city, but not every patch of pavement can claim it.