Citizens fight of court…
Citizens fight of court…Gainesville citizens struggle to conserve trees in Tom Petty Park ahead of pickleball court installation.
GAINESVILLE, Florida (WCJB) Current repairs at Tom Petty Park are troubling some people who wish to protect the environment.
Citizens fight of court…
The park needs to be completely renovated. “It needs some upgrades,” said resident Phillip Allen. “The racquetball courts have been in disrepair for a really long time, so it’s really nice to see the city coming through or the county with the Wild Spaces Public Places funding to be able to spruce up the park.”
Residents like Allen want the city to keep its hands off them. “Pickleball is excellent. I simply don’t know if it has to be the magnitude they’re intending on accomplishing,” Allen remarked. “It’s not lost on me that a tree’s canopy looks like our lungs. “They are the source of our oxygen,” explained resident Susan Mastin. Residents want to protect the environment and urge the project manager to either shrink the courts or remove the two courts closest to the wooded area.
Citizens fight of court…
“If they could change the plan and remove the seventh and eighth courts, there would be no reason to impact the woods in that manner,” said resident Monica Leadon Cooper.
“So to hear that they’re going to tear down a bunch of these trees that provide our shade, they provide our education, they provide wildlife all sorts of food, and habitat to live in all to put down pavement when there’s a perfectly acceptable solution to begin with the initial designs of the smaller pickleball courts,” Allen told me. Allen also believes that the concrete for the courts will cause floods because he has seen it before.
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