Denver Parks and Recreation will remove pickleball from Congress Park starting this week and is abandoning plans to build a pickleball court at Sloan’s Lake Park over concerns about the game’s noise, according to Denver Gazette news partner 9News.

It’s the latest move to deal with noise problems related to the burgeoning sport since the city council in Centennial passed a six-month moratorium on new builds of outdoor courts in that city.

The move comes after neighbors near the Congress Park court complained to the city about violations of the city’s noise ordinance. An inspector found sound levels relating to pickleball at over 70 decibels in some residential locations near the court, according to records obtained by 9NEWS. City ordinance only allows for 55 decibels.

“Clearly at these homes along this site….it is violating the noise ordinance,” Denver Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Scott Gilmore said.

The court planned for Sloan’s Lake Park is only about 100 feet away from homes, Gilmore said. He said the current guidance he’s gotten from researching sound abatement found pickleball courts need to be 500 feet or further away from homes.

The Congress Park court and surrounding tennis courts were already slated to close for a maintenance project on April 3, which includes abatement of asbestos in the concrete. Denver Parks and Recreation originally planned to move the pickleball courts away from homes along Detroit Street and further into the park but abandoned that plan after researching the noise issue.

9NEWS obtained some of the complaints about the park. Neighbors complained about parking, trash, players having door dash and alcohol delivered to adjacent homes and noise as well.

“It has taken my true joy of living on the park away as now the noise and continuous congestion has become a true nuisance to my family and me,” one neighbor wrote in a complaint to 311.

“I am saddened to write you today that the noise emanating from pickleball played in this beloved park has become illegally loud, unhealthy — and simply untenable,” another neighbor wrote.

Betsy Rumely, who lives further down the block, told 9NEWS the sound has made it unpleasant to sit in her backyard. The sound inspector found the pickleball noise near her home violated the ordinance.

Read the full story on 9New.com