Harrow resident must remove illegal pickleball court: Town of Essex

Rob DiMenna built this pickleball court adjacent to his home on Lake Crest Beach Road. (Michelle Maluske/CTV News Windsor)

The Town of Essex says a Harrow resident must remove an illegal pickleball court.

Town officials have told Rob DiMenna he must now pay to remove his concrete court on Lake Crest Beach Road.

“I’d like to try find a solution to this, really,” DiMenna begged Essex Council Monday.

He offered to sign a lease agreement with the town and cover all insurance liabilities to keep the court open.

“It was not nothing malicious about it. I have a great group of neighbors. They had talked about pickleball. I had played a little bit, I enjoyed it. So, I chose to put it in,” he said.

The court has been wildly popular, according to neighbour Kathryn Hengl.

“Many residents have taken up the sport since the spring. We’ve also taught the children on the beach to play pickleball,” Hengl said telling council most of the 52 people who live on their quiet rural road use the court.

“Someone will send out a text saying ‘Pickleball court at 730’, and you get down there and residents and neighbors all come down, bring their chairs, sit and watch and visit, play, socialize.”

Council couldn’t be persuaded.

The court, by DiMenna’s own admission, was built on public property without a permit.

“We never would have approved it,” Manager, Capital Works & Asset Management David McBeth told council, advising it is on top of the town’s sanitary trunk main which feeds the treatment plant.

“The property is also over top of the water main that services all the residents there.”

The legal department also has “grave concerns” with the precedent-setting should they allow the court to remain.

“Basically, what council would be saying is if anybody put something up on town property without permission, that we would try to find a way to allow it,” Joseph Malandruccolo, Director of Legal & Legislative Services said.

Malandruccolo said the town could also be liable if someone was injured.

A lease with DiMenna would be a “complicated legal relationship” that would have to include $10-15,000 held in a trust in case the town needed to unexpectedly demolish the court.

And Malandruccolo said it might make selling the home difficult in the future.

Council went in closed session to briefly consider a motion which wound up being an order the court be removed within 30 days and the property “restored to the towns’ satisfaction” at DiMenna’s expense.