BOISE — A white net contrasting a green court can bring a few different sports to mind, but the city of Boise is moving toward dedicated courts for those wielding paddles versus rackets.

Boise is reevaluating its court uses to provide space for pickleball enthusiasts to play while also mitigating concerns from tennis players and residents. This includes ideas to bring more pickleball courts to the city.

“There’s been a lot of feedback from the community, very passionate people, thinking that we should have more pickleball courts,” Recreation Superintendent Roseanne Brown said at an Aug. 18 Boise City Council workshop.

Within Boise, the city currently has 14 public pickleball courts. Twelve are located at Hobble Creek Park behind the West Boise YMCA and Aquatic Center off Chinden Boulevard. The remaining two are at Eagle Rock Park near the Old Idaho Penitentiary on Warm Springs Avenue. What lies between the two parks is a pickleball desert.

The city has a list of potential sites for new courts that Brown shared at the workshop:

• Owyhee Park
• Optimist Youth Sports Complex
• Molenaar Park
• Alta Harris Park

These new projects could add up to 32 new pickleball courts by 2028.

An alternative to the dedicated courts is shared use. According to Brown there are 22 shared-use courts that serve pickleball and tennis. However, both communities have expressed a dislike for the sharing.

Rather than a “two birds with one stone” scenario, sharing courts raises concerns. Pickleball players have complained of the overlapping lines painted on the court causing confusion. Tennis players haven’t been fond of the noise that comes from their pickleball neighbors.

“The issue is noise, people don’t like that pickleball noise,” Brown said.

The clacking of a pickleball game is a familiar sound for pickleball enthusiasts, but for some in the community, noise has been a source of contention.

In 2025, the city settled a lawsuit by neighbors over tennis courts that were converted to pickleball courts. Patrick Dougherty and Kathleen Romito lived adjacent to the Willow Lane Park courts and complained of a “severe and persistent noise disturbance” caused by pickleball games, the Idaho Press previously reported.

The Willow Lane courts have since been reverted to tennis courts, as have courts at Manitou Park, resulting in a loss of 12 pickleball courts. This lack of courts has pushed Boise players elsewhere.

Boise Pickleball Club President Scott Rencher said the city cut its pickleball courts right when the sport was taking off.

“Meridian has added a ton of new courts. McCall just added 12 new courts. Twin Falls just added almost 20 new courts,” Rencher said. “Even you know, cities half the size of Boise and (with) half as much money have added quite a few more courts.”

At the same time, sharing courts with tennis players just isn’t worth it for either side. Only having a few courts at a park isn’t sufficient for hosting events or games.

“It does feel like splitting the baby, kind of splitting it in half, doesn't serve either group very well,” Rechner said. “Now you've got a situation where there's just two tennis courts and six pickleball courts. There's so many places you can go with lots of tennis courts where (your whole league) can play, but just having two doesn't seem like it would serve tennis that well.”

Boise currently has 108 tennis courts according to Idaho Tennis Association Executive Director Kyle Jewett. This includes Boise School District courts open to the public during the summer. Still, Jewett said the courts aren’t enough to keep up with tennis’s growth locally.

“We've grown play in the Treasure Valley specifically by 15% over the last couple years,” he said. “We just keep growing and growing and growing.”

Jewett said shared use has been a challenge with overlapping lines that cause confusion. While the sound of pickleball bothers some tennis players, Jewett himself doesn’t mind it. Pickleball isn’t necessarily loud, but the constant noise can become irritating.

“It's almost like if you were to hear Little League baseball, and you have the constant hit off the bat, where it's that ‘ting ting ting,’” Jewett said. “... When it's every shot, and it's that same type of noise every time, that's what I think grates on people.”

Pickleball equipment is advancing by the day. Rechner said he uses a quiet paddle that is lined with felt.

So does a tennis versus pickleball rivalry exist? Maybe for some, but Jewett doesn’t see it that way.

“We've got a lot of crossover,” he said. “A lot of tennis players have gone to pickleball and still continue to play tennis.”

The Idaho Tennis Association’s mission is to get people active, and pickleball serves as a middle ground for less experienced players.

On the other hand, Rechner believes that the city has underestimated pickleball’s popularity in the past.

“To be honest, I feel like the city has had a pretty strong tennis bias for the last few years. That's understandable,” Rechner said. “I think they're kind of getting it (now), that the voices of pickleball are getting kind of overwhelming.”

Survey results released by the city in December found that 79% of respondents would support the addition of new pickleball courts. A lesser number, 68% of respondents, would support converting existing tennis courts into pickleball courts.

“Seventy-nine percent of folks came out and said they want more pickleball courts, which is a pretty overwhelming mandate for Boise,” Rechner said. “I don't think you get 79% of people to agree to more schools or roads or anything.”