By Sam Richards

Staff writer

 

Wednesday, March 12 (10:30 a.m.): A March 3 Town Hall meeting for sharing as much information as possible about the planned pickleball structure, which would be built next to the Event Center, made one point clear. There are still several key unknowns about the controversial project even after a decade of planning, most of them centering on what it will ultimately cost, and about whether the noise it generates will unduly burden Rossmoor residents who live closest to where it would be.

An estimated 500 people – which based on outbursts of applause included significant contingents of both project supporters and opponents – filled the Event Center for this Town Hall event. GRF General Manager Jeff Matheson and David Masenten of project architect ELS Architecture discussed various aspects of the project.

Masenten said the ongoing work to get long-term pickleball courts built is a move by Rossmoor to “stay current” in its amenity offerings to both current and future residents.

But Matheson was quick to tell the crowd that he and Masenten were “not here to convince you one way or another about the project.”

Most advance questions Matheson and Masenten fielded last week revolved around money. While GRF has determined that it will take about $60,000 a year – 75 cents per manor per year – to maintain the pickleball structure, do building inspections, landscaping and related actions, the cost to build the structure remains up in the air, with several variables in play.

Though some capital budget estimates place the initial cost at $4 million or more, that figure is far from certain, Matheson cautioned. The city of Walnut Creek could place more requirements on the project, which likely would boost the project cost; there could be tariffs on steel needed to build the structure (more money); and until the project goes out to bid, Matheson said, there’s no accurate baseline for how much it could all cost.

There’s no mystery, though, about where the money to build the pickleball facility would come from. This building is a capital project, and money for capital projects comes from the GRF Trust Estate Fund. That fund is replenished by money gathered from most home sales in Rossmoor, those that include the Membership Transfer Fee.

That fee is currently $13,500 per transaction; if 400 qualifying manor sales occur in Rossmoor in 2025 (there were 399 in 2024), that is about $5.4 million collected in 2025 (there also is a balance of more than $10 million in that fund as well). Money for capital projects like pickleball, Matheson said, does not come from residents’ coupon payments.

Despite substantial pro-construction and anti-construction camps having taken root over the past several months, opportunities for direct clashes were minimized at the Town Hall. A substantial outburst of applause arose when Matheson acknowledged that some residents question whether it is economically sound to spend $4 million or more for a project that will directly benefit fewer than 700 of Rossmoor’s 9,900 residents. A short time later, when Matheson countered that the facility would continue to benefit that many people or more for many years – and require mostly only routine maintenance spending after initial construction – the cheering was even louder.

As with most GRF amenities, he added, the pickleball facility would be covered under Rossmoor’s “shared cost model” under which facility construction and major maintenance are paid for by all, even though most such facilities aren’t necessarily used by a majority of Rossmoorians.

“This will be built for the long haul,” Matheson said.

Several written questions were answered at the Town Hall. GRF will not have to take out any loans for the pickleball project, Matheson said; Masenten said the city had had no significant objections to the project’s basic design, and that he hopes all city approvals will be in hand by the end of March; the pickleball courts will be playable during heavy rains; and no parts of Dollar Ranch Golf Course will have to be removed to accommodate the pickleball building.

Not all audience questions were answered at the Town Hall; a comprehensive list of questions, and answers, appears elsewhere in this edition of the News.

Resident Ellen Gilman wanted answers to more of her questions. She lives across the golf course from where the pickleball building would be and fears that the noise from it will damage home values in her neighborhood. “We’re going to be looking at a hockey rink,” Gilman said.

One man in the Town Hall audience had a message attached to the back of his hat: “No pickles without 51% resident approval.”

Gilman and fellow resident Penny Ittner said they wish microphones had been placed around the audience area for her neighbors to ask their own questions. Matheson said open mics can make it difficult to control the flow of questions, and that more questions can be answered live by collecting them in advance.

“I think this (project) is a done deal,” Ittner said.

Carol Cerioni, president of the Rossmoor Pickleball Club, said she thought Matheson and Masenten did a good job of answering questions at the meeting.

Added former Pickleball Club president Frank Reynolds, “No matter what information that’s put out, there will be people who will never change their minds about it.”

The Pickleball Town Hall is scheduled to be shown on Rossmoor TV seven times over the next eight days (see the TV guide in this edition).