Lake Country says it won’t take further action on sport court noise complaint

A Lake Country, B.C. man said he is feeling stifled after the municipality had a lawyer send him a letter saying it won’t take further action on his noise nuisance complaints about a local sport court.

Kal Buterman said the sport court, built in a public park next to his house, for people to play pickleball, basketball, and ball hockey is causing a major noise nuisance.

“I love the community. I love the people in the community. I just have a very very hard time … enjoying my backyard,” said Buterman.

“It’s creating a nuisance. It’s like a neighbour’s dog barking that you can’t do anything about.”

Buterman said the sport court was installed several years after he built his home.

The District of Lake Country put in vegetation as a buffer and closed Shoreline Park, where the sport court is located, an hour earlier but it hasn’t fixed the problem for Buterman.

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“I usually have about 20 people playing basketball sometimes past the hours of 10 o’clock. I can’t go to bed till the last person is off the court,” Buterman said.

Lake Country does have a bylaw that prohibits nuisance noise but last year the municipality got a lawyer to send Buterman a letter saying the district won’t be taking any further actions about “alleged bylaw infractions or nuisance” at the sports court.

In the wake of the lawyer’s letter, Buterman continued to try to engage with the District of Lake Country directly.

He is speaking publically about the issue now out of frustration.

“They’ve dug their heels in and they are being belligerent about helping us out as neighbours. I pay the same taxes as the person eight houses up, but I don’t have any peace and enjoyment in my backyard,” Buterman said.

Lake Country’s mayor defends the municipality’s handling of the issue. Mayor James Baker feels all reasonable steps have been taken.

“We’ve worked with him to do everything practical that we can do that doesn’t infringe other peoples’ rights to leisure time and enjoyment,” Baker said.

Buterman alleges that Lake Country isn’t ensuring its own facility follows its own nuisance bylaw, but the mayor denies there is a conflict of interest in the way the municipality’s nuisance bylaw is being enforced.

“We enforce the bylaw, but when we get unreasonable complaints of a single individual what steps are we supposed to take to spend taxpayers’ money for a frivolous complaint?” Baker said.

Both sides believe there is more the other should be doing to address the noise, but the dispute seems to have come to a stalemate.