Pickleball Noise Lawsuits And Recall Fights Are Splitting Palm Beach County HOAs

Richard Kitt lives about 70 feet from a pickleball court in his gated Boca Raton community, and he says the noise reaches him like it is happening in his own kitchen. He is one of a growing number of Palm Beach County homeowners now suing their own associations over the sport’s signature pop, a sound that acoustics testing has already flagged as louder than what some neighborhoods were built to tolerate.

Homeowners in two gated communities have filed lawsuits over pickleball noise. In a third, residents are trying to recall the board members who approved converting a tennis court into four pickleball courts. Across all three, the same argument keeps surfacing: a sport growing faster than almost any other in America is now colliding with the neighborhoods that host it.

The Case That Could Set a Precedent

The county’s first pickleball-noise lawsuit, first reported by the Palm Beach Post, targets the homeowners association at Parkside at Boca Trail in Boca Raton. Kitt, the plaintiff, says the sound from the courts near his home is “like they are playing in my kitchen.” According to court filings, the HOA’s own acoustical study found that pickleball noise from the site exceeded Boca Raton’s daytime noise limits.

The case is expected to go to trial in September, and attorney Keith Grumer, who represents homeowners in two of the Boca Raton disputes, said it could set a precedent across the state. The Parkside HOA has declined to comment publicly, but in court filings it argues it is permitted to change the makeup of its recreation center, and that residents knew when they bought their homes that the complex could change over time.

The fight has already cost Kitt personally. He said the dispute has divided his community, and that the harassment began after he filed suit, with former friends among his neighbors no longer speaking to him.

Public Courts, Late-Night Play

A second Boca Raton-area lawsuit centers on Polo Trace, a community west of Delray Beach. Grumer, who also represents the Polo Trace homeowners, said what sets this case apart is that the community opened its pickleball courts to the public.

“What is unusual about Polo Trace is that they opened their courts for use to the public,” Grumer said. “As a result, play is constant and can occur as late as 11 p.m. They (the board) did this without a community vote.”

The four existing courts sit within 100 feet of homes, and the HOA is looking to remove a tennis court to add four more pickleball courts nearby. The lawsuit alleges the board never studied whether the noise from play amounts to a nuisance.

One resident, who asked not to be identified, said play sometimes starts at dawn, and that he and his family have been harassed and confronted by pickleball players who support the additional courts. The Polo Trace HOA did not respond to requests for comment, though it told residents in a May email that the lawsuit “may affect the anticipated timeline” for the tennis-to-pickleball conversion.

Not every player at Polo Trace agrees with the lawsuit. Doug Fight, who plays several times a week at the community’s courts, called the suit “frivolous” and said the demand for additional courts is clear.

Grumer said pickleball noise complaints have become a specialty within his law practice. “I’m getting calls all the time from folks who say pickleball noise affects their quality of life,” he said. “This is all becoming, unfortunately, very ugly.”

Both Boca Raton cases now sit on the same legal calendar as the September trial date, which means the Polo Trace dispute could either draw on whatever the Parkside case decides or head to its own hearing with no precedent to lean on at all. Either way, the outcome will shape how other Palm Beach County HOAs handle the next request to add or expand pickleball courts.

A Recall Effort at Crescent Lakes

At Crescent Lakes, the fight has not reached a courtroom, but it has reached a recall petition. Monika Mazgal is leading an effort to remove board members who approved converting the community’s tennis courts into pickleball courts. She has consulted with Grumer but said she cannot currently afford to sustain litigation costs.

“We have more than 100 signatures of people opposed to what the board wants to do,” Mazgal said. “That is about half the community. Still, they seem to want go ahead with it despite the widespread opposition.”

The Crescent Lakes HOA told residents a year ago that it planned to close the community’s two har-tru tennis courts, citing maintenance costs, and replace them with four pickleball courts. Mazgal said some of the new courts would sit within 10 feet of her home, and that residents should have had a formal vote on the change.

Opponents of the project protested at a July 7 board meeting, calling on the board to reverse course and for three members to resign. Mazgal said the board let residents speak for more than an hour, then ended the meeting without responding to their comments.

“They (the board) won’t listen to people like me who live four steps from the courts,” Mazgal said. “There is no plan to install sound barriers or perform sound testing. Homeowners are being forced to financially underwrite the destruction of their own community amenities.”

The Crescent Lakes HOA did not respond to requests for comment.

The Decibel Math Behind the Fights

Homeowners association attorneys and court builders alike are increasingly citing acoustics data in these disputes. Mor-Sports Group, an Estero, Florida-based company that builds pickleball courts across the state, warns HOAs on its own website to understand what it calls “the science behind pickleball noise” before approving new courts.

• Pickleball generates roughly 70 decibels of noise on court
• Tennis, by comparison, generates roughly 40 to 45 decibels
• Mor-Sports Group states on its website: “The noise difference between pickleball and tennis isn’t subjective”

That gap helps explain why so many of these disputes involve communities that converted tennis courts into pickleball courts rather than building on new ground. The same footprint that hosted tennis for decades without complaint is now generating noise complaints once pickleball moves in.

A Pattern Beyond Palm Beach County

Grumer is seeking temporary injunctions in both of the Boca Raton lawsuits to halt play while the cases proceed to trial. Palm Beach County is not alone in facing this fight. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Naples and in Hillsborough County’s Apollo Beach community, where residents compared the sound of nearby pickleball play to “a pneumatic nail gun on a roof.”

For players, the courts at the center of these disputes represent access to a sport still adding participants faster than almost any other in the country. For the neighbors who live closest to them, the same courts have become a daily test of what a residential noise limit is supposed to mean. With one Boca Raton case headed to trial in September and a recall vote possible at Crescent Lakes, Palm Beach County’s homeowners associations could soon have real legal guidance on how to balance the two, guidance that HOA boards well beyond Florida are likely to watch closely as pickleball keeps expanding into neighborhoods built for something quieter.