Those unfamiliar with local land-use codes may be surprised to discover that properties zoned for agriculture — often associated with grazing animals, hay bales and barn-like houses — can be repurposed into something very different. Mining, oil and gas operations, airports and solid waste disposal sites, all fit into the long list of allowed uses.
That’s why some residents in the Gunbarrel area of 79th Street and Lookout Road were taken aback last summer to see a proposal that would turn 20 acres of agricultural land in their neighborhood into a tennis club.
“Really? Ag land can be a tennis complex?” said Joyce Frailey, treasurer of Gunbarrel Estates HOA.
She said many residents were shocked that land designated for agricultural use could be approved for so many different types of development.
Kimberly Blaire, who lives opposite the site, was among those taken by surprise. From her kitchen table she looks up to a community trail, swooping birds of prey and vast open space gently sloping eastward. Currently covered in winter white, the treeless area transforms into golden brown patched with prairie dog mounds in the summer.
Blaire has lived in the Gunbarrel community for 15 years. In her opinion its natural essence will be lost to light pollution and noise if the proposed Tennis Center of the Rockies facility is approved. She said the area acts like an amphitheater. Because of the way sound travels into her neighborhood from above, Lookout Church to the south politely sends out postcards when it has potentially noisy events.
The proposal seeks to develop land currently approved for one single-family home into a facility comprising 26 courts, with half of them covered by football field-sized bubbles in the winter, plus a clubhouse and pool — all intended for public use. Kendall Chitambar, co-founder of the project with his wife, Donna, said they spent over eight months searching for properties before settling on 5701 N 79th Street.
“My wife and I dug into savings and got it under contract,” said Chitambar, who is deeply involved in tennis through coaching and running the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center he founded, a hub for tennis programming in Boulder, as well as pursuing the new facility.
Chitambar said he submitted the pre-application to the county last May. After that, he said, people started to see the project in a negative light. He said initially the proposal was larger in scale than what came in a later official application this January.
After seeing signs from the Stop 79th Street Tennis Complex group — organized by Frailey and a handful of others — and feeling the negative attention, he said he’s surprised and sad.
“We thought Niwot and Gunbarrel would be enthusiastic because of the diverse people we serve,” he said. “The demographic we serve is so diverse, literally from age two to 100.”
But a development as big as this in a rural setting, despite its proximity to a city and other developed areas, is a classic setup for the debate between development and preservation.
Blaire, who is not angry but hopeful the process will play out fairly, said she is concerned not just for her view and the wildlife but for the potential loss of the rural feel to her community. She pointed to the guiding principles of the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan, specifically number five, which aims to “maintain the rural character and function of the unincorporated area of Boulder County by protecting environmental resources, agricultural uses, open spaces, vistas, and the distinction between urban and rural areas of the county.”
Boulder’s main tennis hub faces demolition
The sport of tennis in Boulder has experienced a loss of structural support over the last decade. Courts have been transformed with pickleball lines or repurposed for other developments. The latter is happening now in a staggering blow to the tennis community, as the main hub of covered tennis courts, leased from the Millennium Harvest House Hotel by Chitambar’s Rocky Mountain Tennis Center, is set to be bulldozed alongside the hotel to build CU Boulder student housing. The courts will be shut down in April 2024, and likely ripped out this summer for the new development.
Chitambar highlighted his organization’s long relationship with CU. The women’s varsity tennis team uses its facility, and so did the men’s team before it dissolved. On top of losing the tennis center’s 15 courts to student housing, the university is also redeveloping its 12 outdoor courts this winter, leaving just three rooftop courts at the campus rec center. Chitambar said he presented his 79th Street plan to the university, receiving positive feedback.
“They loved that it’s just 15 minutes from CU, and we decided in October that we would all move forward together,” he said. “We’re ironing out those details now but the goal is to partner on the facility. It will be the Tennis Center of the Rockies, home of the Buffs.”
Currently, the doomed Rocky Mountain Tennis Center courts, which live behind the Millenium Hotel, are the only privately owned courts in Boulder accessible to the public without a yearslong waiting list. Boulder Country Club provides indoor courts for its members, but access requires tens of thousands of dollars in an initiation fee and thousands more annually. Meadows Swim and Tennis Club has 14 tennis courts open 6 a.m. to midnight, but for non-members this option is moot because of a five-year waitlist.
Boulder’s Parks and Recreation Department is aware of the problem, and advocate Michael Xu, president of the Boulder Tennis Association, has been raising alarm bells with its staff to address the need for more infrastructure. As a stakeholder, Xu collaborated with Parks and Rec on a court study, which will help inform plans for future racquet sport investments in Boulder over the next 10 years. Currently, the department recommends establishing 44 new racquet courts (half tennis, half pickleball) and has spent $1 million in improvements from 2022 to 2024.
On the Parks and Rec website announcing the plan, it states, “After doing research BPR staff learned what other Colorado cities’ level of service is and realized that the percentage of Boulder’s population that plays tennis and pickleball is higher than the national average.”
According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Tennis Association, over 10% of Boulder considers themselves active tennis players. The national average is around 8%.
While Xu is happy with the city’s plan, he isn’t convinced it will happen on a timeline that will satisfy the tennis community.
“Long term it’s a great plan, but we’re about to lose 27 courts this year,” Xu said.
The plan proposes eight new courts at the East Boulder Rec Center to be constructed in 2025, 12 at Valmont Park in 2028, and another eight at Tom Watson Park in 2030. However, this is only a working plan. No funding or approvals have been secured.
The Boulder Tennis Association that Xu presides over has been running a tournament called the Austin Scott since 1967. If it takes place this year, it will be the first time, other than in 2020, that the event won’t be held in Boulder.
To the residents in Gunbarrel who have gathered for opposition meetings, the fate of tennis shouldn’t be put on their shoulders.
“It sucks, but it doesn’t mean they’re entitled,” said Frailey.
After the community input phase, which closes Feb. 23, an internal Boulder County staff review and subsequent recommendation will determine whether the proposal can move to the next phase. If so, a county planning commission hearing will take place, then another hearing with the Board of County Commissioners for final approval.
Both parties are gathering petition signatures to show community support for their respective goals. These petitions, along with any other community input, must be submitted by Feb. 23. You can view the tennis community’s petition here, and the opposition petition here.
Nice balanced article. I just wanted to note that there is no rezoning required and this is an allowed use with a Special Use Review in the Boulder County code.
Almost zero discussion of the wildlife that will be impacted, nor the light pollution, nor the climate impact, nor that there is no public transportation so cars will be required (again climate impact), nor that it will be water and energy intensive (again climate impact), nor that there will be detention ponds and septic fields on a slope that already struggles with flooding, nor that the site is surrounded by a conservation area and across the street from a grassland preserve, nor nor nor. I could listen at least a dozen more items. You are correct that a “tennis facility” (still unclear to me how we can say it is a tennis facility, when it is much more than that) is an allowed special use of the land …. but only if it also meets all the Criteria of the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan, which it does not. So, for all those reasons, and a dozen more, I strongly oppose this project.
This is a CU problem translated to the city. The tennis courts at “CU South” will be gone and the Millennium courts demolished courts for 935 bedrooms in apartments, but rented by the bedroom for exorbitant prices, of course by “Landmark Properties,” out of Atlanta, Georgia, after they got booted by UC Berkeley.
These courts served the two ends of town and this project will cause increased congestion and carbon footprint in town getting to GB from central BO. It’s a curse of BO’s greed in STR to ever to have ever done the flagpole annexation of GB and it’s now it’s blowback.
The narrow two lane roads here in Gunbarrel are already saturated during rush hours, making it difficult and challenging to get on them and use them. I hate to think about living with the construction of this complex. The now dead compost facility proposal faced the same road problem – the roads are not sufficient to handle additional traffic.
Don’t forget the issue about the lack of maintenence of subdivision roads, which is still unresolved after decades (https://niwot.org/boulder-county-subdivision-road-paving/). Not sure how much this latter is relevant for the tennis complex, but it does make validate my feeling that East Boulder County is viewed as both a resource and dumping ground for externalized costs for the benefit others who don’t live here. And undeveloped land is destroyed in the process. We will be fighting such efforts forever, until it’s all paved over and junked up with cars.
Local coverage states that the club will be members only and will include much more than tennis courts. Your article states the proposed tennis club will be open to the public. Which is true? From the Lefthand Valley Courier: “The proposed membership tennis club would include at least 26 tennis courts, two large bubble covers, a clubhouse, two swimming pools, eight padel courts, twelve pickleball courts, volleyball and beach tennis courts, septic fields and a detention pond on 19.73 acres. Each of the two 50-foot high inflatable bubble covers would be about the size of a football field, four stories tall and kept inflated continuously with two HVAC systems, airlocks and pressurization units.”
https://www.lhvc.com/story/2024/02/07/news/opposition-to-tennis-facility-plans-strategy/8833.html
The owners have said it would be open to the public with a membership option. The facility will have a pool and clubhouse. The earlier pre-application had proposed pickleball courts. — BRL editors
The homeowner that owns the defunct tennis court on 75th across from the Heatherwood subdivision is sure missing an opportunity to make some money and maintain their tennis court. I am sure it would not come close to fulfilling the need but…
As a Gunbarrel Resident, my knee jerk reaction is to not oppose this use of land. Those courts will have one of the best views in the county!
Good article that covers the main points. I live in Niwot, less than2 miles from the proposed facility. To my mind the plusses outweigh the minuses and the objections to it have a NIMBY flavor. If use of the facility is not prohibitively expensive (and it shouldn’t be), it would become effectively another Boulder rec center in an area that could use one.
And Orin’s comment argues my point about the poor planning of the flagpole annexation. Niwot and GB should have their own rec center/s.
The University needs to step up and develop multiple tennis courts for its teams and for the community! (Thinking of the great PR move it would be!!)
I would like to point out that the nearest houses in the protesters Gunbarrel subdivision are 2,700 feet from the proposed site.
Maybe true but to quote Boulder Parks and Rec, “ the closest houses in the subdivision to
the west are over 100 vertical feet lower than the highest developed area on the subject
parcel. It is likely that the lights would be visible to these houses (and to many other areas). If
true, this would significantly impact dark skies in the area. “
I would like to point out that Macon’s 2,700 feet number is incorrect. There are 8 homes within 1500 ft of the proposed site (all of whom received a letter from the applicants when they submitted their application as required by the county). Also, all of the homes along cottontail trail that look out over this property are only 2000 ft away. Sound and light can travel much farther than any of those distances.
The sad thing is the loss of the fantastic location at Millennium; City and CU should have bought this to convert to student and resident worker housing or part hotel, saving the tennis center CU uses. Option B, just preserve the courts at CU south for the RMTC and CU. The opposition to this at 79th is not ‘I care about the environment’, it is ‘I care about my private view.’
Jerry – Yes, this is a protected view corridor according to the Boulder Valley Conservation Plan, but the objections to this go way, way beyond just having a good view. Check out the response from Boulder Parks and Open Space to learn more. Why would you accuse those opposed as being so narrow minded as to only care about their “private view”? Give us some credit.
Case in point.
While I do feel some compassion for the tennis community, it’s not the right location for this type of development. This is a rural area. With 55,000 cubic yards of soil to be moved, it is certainly an urban development. 79th street is a very narrow two lane road. Read the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan. It’s a disaster in the making. Find somewhere else.
These investors are promoting the need for us to play year-round tennis while running roughshod over the fact that this development adds a huge carbon footprint, traffic snafus, detrimental impacts on wildlife and ruination of the rural character of this area. I’m really not against tennis. But this is not the right location for it.
NIMBYs at their worst (best?). “It’s OK that my house destroyed what was formerly nature here (i.e. “rural character”), but now that I’m here, no one else is allowed in…” Tennis courts are very low impact vs. a house. And they misrepresent the area as “open space”.
Agreed!
Nope!
I cannot find my latest comment which usually shows up for me even before it is edited.
So sorry if this is a repeat.
In response to Macon, I meant his was a “case in point” for me as an opponent to the tennis development. 2700 ft. is too small a distance for me. 2700 ft. is 1/2 mile. In retrospect I think his perspective was that it was a large distance, although I don’t represent his perspective.
I am very concerned about the proposed development, and I don’t live anywhere near it. What concerns me most is the loss of habitat for living things, and reduction in the quality of habitat in surrounding land that will result if the development moves forward. Development like this chips away at a dark night sky and at connected expanses of unpaved, unsurfaced land that insects, birds, and other animals need to thrive. The stop79.com site describes impact on wildlife that this development would have. We’ve lost so much already–there are about one-third fewer birds around than in 1970 and this includes staggering losses in populations of common species like the Western Meadowlark. More than one-third of North American bird species are of high conservation concern and at risk of extinction without significant conservation action, because of population loss, range reduction, and threats to habitat, according to a 2019 paper in Science titled Decline of the North American avifauna and the Cornell Lab’s All About Birds (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/state-of-north-americas-birds-2016-more-than-one-third-in-need-of-conservation-action/) site. There are better places for a tennis development.
I think Gunbarrel residents’ reaction is absolutely ridiculous. NOTHING has ever been grown in that field for as long as I’ve lived here. Prairie dog wasteland is what it actually is. Maybe 30 years ago it was used, but it’s just wasted space. Let’s start developing Gunbarrel LEEEEETS GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Grasses grow there that prairie dogs eat. And then the bald eagles, golden eagles, hawks, coyotes, and foxes that live there eat those. These species are highly affected by human presence. With your line of reasoning, we should just cover all land in buildings so there’s nothing left to enjoy.