Questions about timeline, financing persist

 

By Sam Richards

Staff writer

 

Wednesday, January 8 (3:30 p.m.): A town hall-style meeting is planned for late February to answer questions about the long-planned pickleball structure, and many of those questions figure to be about time and money.

Ann Mottola, GRF’s director of community services, said the town hall – its date uncertain at press time — will be a platform for explaining the project’s funding. The latter, she said, will include an explanation of how it’s being paid for – from GRF’s Trust Estate Fund, replenished by Membership Transfer Fee money from Rossmoor home sales, and not from coupon payments.

“We want to make sure people understand the funding, and where the money comes from for capital projects, and where it comes from for maintenance, “ Mottola said.

All this comes after a new cost estimate for the long-planned project adjacent to the Event Center was revealed in November to be about $3.9 million — up from a previous estimate of around $3.1 million.

Mottola said that $3.9 million number is a “good working number,” and an accurate one. That the $3.9 million is substantially more than the previous estimate isn’t a big surprise to Mottola, as further design refinements, including changes required or recommended by the city as the project wends its way through the permitting process, generally add to the overall cost.

“We didn’t think that (figure) was alarmingly high,” she said. “Until you have all the questions answered, you can’t have an accurate measure of what the actual costs are.”

Still, that $3.9 million figure was high enough to prompt the GRF Planning Committee to, in November, start considering what other 2025 capital projects could be delayed if the available funds cannot pay for all of them in 2025. With pickleball so popular, and with Rossmoor’s existing courts living on borrowed time because they’re near a threatened creek bank and slowly falling apart, moving ahead with the pickleball structure is seen as a priority.

A premium pickleball facility is also seen as a way to market Rossmoor, given this fast-growing sport is especially popular with seniors.

“People call me and email me asking about the status of the (pickleball) facility,” said Carol Cerioni, for the past 11 months president of the Rossmoor Pickleball Club. “No pickleball person will move to any place that doesn’t have pickleball at the forefront.” The planned facility will increase Rossmoor property values, said Cerioni, disagreeing with some Rossmoorians who insist the expected noise from the facility will lower adjacent property values.

On Dec. 4, members of the city’s Design Review Commission acknowledged they had received 15 emails from city residents commenting on the pickleball project, 14 of them negative, most of them citing the potential noise created by pickleball play (and the players themselves). Two residents told the commission, in person, noise would be a problem.

Meanwhile, Design Review Commissioners had plenty of questions about the project at that Dec. 4 meeting, encompassing noise concerns, some aspects of the design of the front of the structure, whether it should look more (or less) like the Event Center next door and the kinds of plants suggested for planting around the building.

Commission Chairwoman Casey Case asked Mottola whether the location near the Event Center is best, and whether the closest neighbors would be sufficiently protected from noise. Mottola said that adjacent to the Event Center was ultimately decided to be the best prospective spot in a largely built-up Rossmoor.

Added project architect Ken Loretto of project architect ELS Architecture, “We want to keep the weather outside, and the noise inside.”

It will ultimately be up to the city’s Planning Commission to approve the pickleball project. There is no date set for the Planning Commission to take up the issue, Mottola said, and the commission may well require further modifications or establish new conditions.

Cerioni said pickleball players she knows aren’t fazed by the structure’s costs and noted they’re likely to rise even higher if any major delays crop up. “I think it’s important that we do it now and get it done.”

In addition to addressing the various financial issues related to the pickleball building, the planned town hall session will serve to present updates on the long-running project.

“When projects go on for a long time, giving updates is a good thing,” Mottola said.