PLAN

PHASE 1: Short Term = Hoops. Because there have been past connections between basketball courts and city disturbances such as residential noise and loitering, our committee has recognized the importance of reintroducing courts to the city in as thoughtful of a way as possible. To start, we must distinguish the difference between “Hoops” and “Courts”.?Hoops will be restricted to half-courts which will naturally eliminate the attraction to mass quantities of players looking to participate in organized competitive games. Hoops will have more of a playground-type attraction and be used for simply shooting around and smaller scale games. The size of the basketball hoop’s play area alone will act as a rudimentary security system. By filtering the types and quantity of players that will be attracted to the hoops, we can dismiss the need for security measures that may later be required for full-sized courts.

Hoops will have an immediate impact at our parks by giving our city’s teenage crowd a space to play without having to continue exploiting our parks’ playground areas. The hoops that we are looking to install have a six-foot overhang, which means they can be installed on an existing tennis court without having to remove the tennis court itself. Both will functionally coexist. Additionally, hoops will require minimal initial costs to install. Because we would be sharing existing tennis court surfaces, the only required costs would be for the hoop itself and the labor to install it (see attached cost spreadsheet).

Without the risk of city disturbances and with the extremely low initial costs, there’s no reason we shouldn’t consider strategically installing hoops across our city’s parks immediately (proposed locations listed in next section).

Below is an image of a basketball court overlaid onto a typical tennis court layout:

Below is this same image overlaid onto a satellite view of Kaufman Park (a typical Lakewood tennis court layout):

As the images above demonstrate, one can see that the space requirements for tennis courts and basketball courts are very similar. We will not be requesting to repaint the surfaces to include the basketball boundary lines, because it is not our intention to infringe on the quality of the tennis matches that will continue to exist on these courts. The sole purpose of the images is to merely point out the hoops’ post locations (back against the fence). It is clear to see that the installation of hoops will have no negative impact on the current tennis experience. Instead, the hoops will provide small groups of residents with a new alternative of physical activity without requiring additional land space.

PHASE 2: Long Term = Courts. Because full-sized courts will attract a much larger range and quantity of players, extra thought and care must be submitted before their return to the city. Chief Hassings of Lakewood’s Police Department helped us identify the primary areas of concern that were exposed in the final years before Lakewood’s courts were removed:

a. It is understood that we must minimize noise that could irritate surrounding residents.
b. We must also keep the courts in high traffic areas that will be easily supervised by our Police Department.

By speaking with members of the city council, other city officials, and residents, we have developed these additional concerns:

c. Do not allow nonresidents to take utilization time away from the residents of Lakewood.
d. Make sure the courts are being used for basketball only.
e. Enforce hours of operation that will not allow the courts to be used after sunset.
f. Minimize maintenance so that our city workers will not encounter additional tasks in their already busy schedules.

Besides funding, these are the only clearly defined obstacles that we have compiled from our meetings with city officials to date (see our progress to date).

Many neighboring cities have developed new public basketball court policies that we have taken advice from to form our basketball court sustainability plan. We have also received creative suggestions from the city officials we have already met with. Through these experiences, we have compiled an extensive list of solutions that could help resolve any foreseeable issues we may face when reintroducing full-sized basketball courts to Lakewood.

Before publishing these ideas in a detailed plan, it is first our intention to get a clear understanding of where the Mayor stands on this issue. If he is committed to the cause and willing to investigate this idea in further detail, we will present our plan as well as make a request for an assembly of city officials to meet with our organization to explore our ideas in a roundtable discussion. The reason for this approach is because our group has a multitude of possible solutions for the few obstacles that have been presented to us. We understand that the city will have a preference for some solutions over others, and we feel that our final proposal for our court sustainability plan would be most efficiently implemented after considering our city’s officials’ dedicated and constructive input.

That being said, some of the ideas we have come across to date have been listed below, but not limited to:

• Fully fenced-in courts
• One entrance, one exit
• Hours of operation
• Locking entrances
• Resident-only access during night hours
• General access during daytime hours
• ID Cards
• Registered guest passes
• Voluntary / minimum pay court manager equipped with CB radio
• Security cameras
• Increased police patrols
• Benches for spectators outside of fenced-in courts
• Timed lighting system
• No lighting system
• Specified season of operation
• Trash can in vicinity of courts
• Extensive rules of conduct sign
• Voluntary veteran ‘role model’ players (coaches) with schedules of court appearances to ensure a positive presence during kick-off phase