Leawood residents looking to build private sports courts in their backyard have new requirements to keep in mind. At last week’s meeting, the Leawood Planning Commission approved an amendment to the city’s development ordinance adding new guidelines to the approval process for building new tennis or pickleball courts. The amendment follows multiple planning commission work sessions after residents began raising concerns about noise and bright lights coming from residential pickle ball courts last year. The city explored several ways of addressing the problem, such as cutting back permitted court lighting hours and raising the minimum distance from neighboring property lines. Before last week’s change, residential sports courts — both tennis and pickle ball — already required a special use permit if they had lighting. The amendment approved last week requires residents to notify any neighbors by mail within 200 feet that they want to build a sports court. It also requires the court to be screened from neighbors by evergreen landscaping.
Source: Prairie Village Post
