Larkspur forms pickleball, tennis group to settle court dispute

Piper Park has become Larkspur’s sharpest court-supply problem: eight temporary pickleball courts, two restriped tennis courts, and more than 250 players tied together through a WhatsApp group that keeps filling up the same peak-hour slots. To cool the fight, the city formed an eight-person working group, four pickleball players and four tennis players, to see whether shared scheduling, court conversions or usage rules can produce a compromise before the issue goes back to the City Council.

The dispute did not appear overnight. In June 2019, the Larkspur Parks & Recreation Commission approved lining tennis Court #3 with four pickleball courts and designating it as shared use. By September 2023, the commission had added a paddle-rack rotational system and rolling pickleball nets for open play, and city rules adopted on Sept. 21, 2023 applied to Court #3 during designated pickleball times. Those rules also kicked in a waiting-line paddle rack when all four courts were occupied, a sign that the city was already trying to manage a court crunch before the latest wave of demand hit.

What changed was scale. The city, which has about 13,000 residents, now has a pickleball base large enough that dozens of players are fighting for court time during the busiest hours. Officials had already approved a plan to convert one tennis court into four permanent pickleball courts, but that fix would also cut back on the shared-use space that pickleball players have relied on. That is why the debate has turned from a simple conversion question into a broader argument over access, flexibility and which sport gets priority when the courts are full.

The city’s own survey showed how divided, and how engaged, the community had become. In early 2024, the questionnaire drew more than 130 responses, and a city summary said about two-thirds of respondents favored pickleball. At the same time, public comments filed in April 2026 included a plea to preserve the tennis courts and pointed to Piper Park’s long history of supporting tennis through Larkspur Recreation. The working group’s task is not just to keep the peace at Piper Park, but to find language and rules that both sides can live with.

That push became more urgent after city staff, following the Parks and Recreation Commission’s April 16, 2026 meeting, postponed the capital project to resurface and restripe the Piper Park courts. On May 1, 2026, the city told users the project would not be discussed at the May 20 City Council meeting, and the council calendar still showed meetings on May 20 and June 3. If Larkspur lands on a mixed-use solution, Piper Park could become a useful blueprint for other towns stuck in the same pickleball-versus-tennis squeeze.