Watch above: A southeast Calgary man is willing to pay the city to move a basketball court away from his backyard. Mia Sosiak reports.
CALGARY – A southeast Calgary man is willing to pay the city to move a busy basketball court away from his backyard, after he says he’s been forced to wear noise-cancelling headphones while outside his home.
“It starts at what is it now, about 11:30 a.m., and that will go on until 11:30 at night,” said Keith Broadbent.
“If I sit on my deck, you’d be surprised to see how much that gets you down to hear that constant thump, thump, thump.”
Locals say the popular court is busy almost all year round.
“Me and my friend try to come here two to three hours a day, rain or shine,” said high school basketball player Matthew Proctor. “There’s not a lot of good courts, if you know what I mean, not well-maintained. And…in South Calgary, this is one of the better ones.”
Broadbent says the court was built after he bought his home. Neighbours have joined him in complaining to the city in past years, with no response.
“It would cost me $10,000 or more to move at least, so why don’t I offer the city $10,000 to do some sort of remediation?” he said.
The city says it’s investigating other options to put Broadbent and neighbours at ease, including changing the surface of the court or planting trees to absorb noise.
“If we can manage this in other ways, and it doesn’t require that he donates this money, let’s investigate those first,” said City Parks spokesperson Keath Parker, with the planning and development services unit. “I would argue the fact there is so much use is probably a good thing to the greater community.”
The court is about 50 metres from one fence to the other. Broadbent says a better spot would be to move it to the other end of the park, where other sports fields are located and houses are farther away.
“Mind you, people down there might not like it,” he admitted.
The city plans to consult further with the local community association before making any decision on the location of the court.
With files from Erika Tucker
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