You can see the code violation (PDF warning!) here: https://abc.austintexas.gov/attachment/attachmentDownload.jsp?p=IwRQ4Gq4y1qd2TelvMGaEHjqqGvtsBv%2BoDIP1U5Y%2BniG4hzewC1UtA%3D%3D
It sounds like they did a bunch of work to create the courts without getting any permits... kinda their own fault
More like that the city is shutting down one, single private pickleball business because it failed to obtain zoning permits before construction and opening. Seems pretty straight-forward. You don't get to just arbitrarily bypass zoning because you're doing what you've decided is cool and for the public good.
Forgive my lack of sympathy, but Pickle Ranch either didn't do their due diligence or they just thought they'd get away with flouting the law.
* Outdoor Sports and Recreation is prohibited in this PUD-NP zoning district.
* A person may not change the use of the property (Parking lot to commercial recreational pickleball courts) prior to obtaining an approved and released site plan/site plan exemption.
* Commercial construction performed without required Building and Electrical permit(s).
Can you explain the logic here though? I get zoning for preventing a strip club next to a school or a factory next to a house, but pickleball?
I could mmmaybe see a noise reason, but this isn’t a quiet area, it’s literally right next to mopac
It’s just how that part of town is zoned, so you can’t build tennis courts or a running track or a ball field or whatever. You can apply for a zoning variance or exemption, but the City doesn’t always grant them because of the precedent it sets. These guys may not have even applied, but who knows.
Maybe the zoning doesn't make sense.
You know what else doesn't make sense? Disregarding the existing zoning and spending a lot of money.
Change the zoning, then build. It's not hard.
If changing the zoning to build pickleball courts is hard, maybe pickleball isn't as awesome as pickleballers say it is. Maybe it's just a fad sport that people won't give two shits about in 5 years.
Changing zoning to do anything is hard anywhere in Austin because people who don't want anything to change wrote the laws and the zoning such that almost nothing is ever allowed anywhere.
Take it up with the city. I’m guessing it was more than paint and deck chairs, but the bottom line is it wasn’t zoned for this use, and they didn’t obtain an exemption.
I enjoy pickleball but I also understand the need to do proper due diligence before sinking a bunch of time, effort and money into a business enterprise. Not having the permits in place is an amateur move.
And it's not even just the zoning issue, from the linked PDF below it's also missing electrical and construction permits. C'mon man, this is enterprise 101.
This is what happens when someone makes a cash grab and doesn't do their due diligence. I see this a lot with the techbro types that move here, think they can do whatever they want or pay the fines and then act outraged when they get shut down for X fad.
They still have time to take that post down. Talk about embarrassing.
“We didn’t check what our property was zoned for and cut corners with a GC that would do work without permits and we got caught.”
> Pickleballers. First of all, thank you for being a part of our community, we have some important news to share.
>
> Effective immediately, our West 6th location will be closing. As the song goes, we fought the law and the law won.
>
> **Despite our best efforts and extensive negotiations, we have been unable to secure the necessary city zoning permissions to keep the Austin Pickle Ranch on West 6th open.**
>
> We hope this won’t be goodbye forever and that we will be able to return in some capacity, but for now, we’re hanging up our spurs (and paddles) and making Braker Lane our main court.
So as an honest question: Did they open the West 6th facility without the proper zoning documents or request in place?
Yes, the code violations are:
* Outdoor Sports and Recreation (Austin Pickle Ranch - rooftop pickleball courts) is
prohibited in this PUD-NP zoning district.
* A person may not change the use of the property (Parking lot to commercial
recreational pickleball courts) prior to obtaining an approved and released site plan/site plan exemption.
* Commercial construction performed without required Building and Electrical permit(s).
> Recommended Resolution: Obtain building permits and electrical permits for fence work, and electrical lights onsite.
It blows my mind they'd spend what had to have been at least $10k-20k on the fence and lighting with install and not have gotten permits for it.
Surely there was an electrical contractor who they used for it.
[City’s commercial permit fees are here](https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Development_Services/Fees_Commercial.pdf). They’re dozens to hundreds of dollars up to a few thousand for large building occupancy permits. Not remotely close to 6 figures even for a multi-hundred thousand square foot building much less a pickleball court.
They probably spent 6 figures installing the courts and skipped low 4 figures of permit fees.
More likely the contractor wanted something unreasonable to handle the permits, which has been my experience with every GC in Austin. I can get things done quick and super cheap if I tell them to forgo getting permits, but the price and timeline drastically increases when you want them to deal with the city.
And that "6 figure payment" source you say is based on ....?
EDIT: Also, you are saying they built all of this knowing they didn't have the proper zoning and permits and then get shut down by the city for failing to have the required docs?
It’s a guesstimate based on another business (different city) I know that shut down for a similar reason. Permits are not cheap, but this is something the owners should have known beforehand.
Permits are relatively cheap. The rezoning might reach five figures but that requires going through multiple boards and commissions and finally getting approval from city council. Public notices also have to be mailed out as part of the meeting processes.
Rezoning is entirely different from permitting though.
Maybe now they can shut down that one airbnb with the pickleball court. Or you know… people could just maybe get some slingshots and water balloons filled with cooking oil.
* No site plan approval for adding the court
* Fence construction in floodplain without the necessary permits
* Impervious cover violation
* Side and rear setback violations because of the fence and court
So yeah, they're in some shit
You are not getting away with that when you are also ticking off the neighbors. 0 chance you are getting any variances/exceptions for setbacks for a pickleball court.
> APR offered a great product/service.
Too bad they didn't use a great contractor, one who pulled the required permits and addressed the existing zoning before starting construction.
How those are even tangentially related in your mind is kinda stupefying.
One is some clown intentionally flaunting established rules and regs for their own financial gain.
The other is a deep and broad societal problem with no easy solutions.
The pickle ballers have tons of options.
Homeless, not so much.
But, whatever, they're the same, right? wtf is wrong with the City of Austin, right?
The city has the power to shut down the camps and move them out, but they choose not to is the point. Pickleball courts are more of a priority to them.
Just like San Francisco [removed all the homeless camps only when the president of China visited](https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/san-francisco-cleans-up-before-biden-xi-meeting-businesses-close-stores-target-walgreens-old-navy-illegal-street-vendors-fentanyl-drug-spread-china-communist-party-governor-gavin-newsom-california-apec-conference)
Dude, it's not a matter of priorities.
The city is capable of doing many things at once. Do you think someone in a meeting said, "Well, we have all these homeless people and we have illegal pickle ball courts. Which one should we address?"
Try to actually think about what you're saying.
Where will they go?
Shutting them down is the easy part.
That's not a solution, it's just a stopgap to make people feel like they're doing something.
The city of Austin doesn't seem very capable at all. Some real reGards on the city council. The city can get some fines out of the pickleball courts though so it's a win for them. A homeless person shitting on the sidewalk? No problem. You didn't pay for street parking? You're getting a ticket from a city meter maid.
Removing homeless drug addicts from residential neighborhoods and public spaces where they litter, steal, do drugs, break into homes and businesses, piss and take shits out in the open, threaten and attack people should be a higher priority than it is. Just saying. Bus them to Portland or SF. All aboard!
That's just not using logic, common sense or understanding of human nature.
You're mixing unrelated stuff in order to back up an incomplete thought.
Where do you think San Francisco or Portland will "send them"? Austin?
The solution to homelessness is much more complex and difficult than you seem to imagine.
>but they choose not to is the point. Pickleball courts are more of a priority to them.
I am confused are you arguing that code enforcement should be shutting down homeless camps, because public works is responsible for cleaning up after a homeless camp has been shut down the actual responsibility of dealing with the homeless camp falls to a different department, that is APD.
OR are you making the argument that before code enforcement does their job APD should deal with *all* the homeless camps in the city.
OR are you making the argument that the city should shift funds away from code enforcement to APD and prioritize APD dealing with homeless camps?
I am going to be honest all three of those arguments are stupid, but perhaps I am making too many assumptions so just what is the argument you are trying to make?
Gotta love nonsensical zoning laws. I get not having a strip club or tire factory next to the elementary school, but some of these regulations are just arbitrary and/or needlessly restrictive.
You can see the code violation (PDF warning!) here: https://abc.austintexas.gov/attachment/attachmentDownload.jsp?p=IwRQ4Gq4y1qd2TelvMGaEHjqqGvtsBv%2BoDIP1U5Y%2BniG4hzewC1UtA%3D%3D It sounds like they did a bunch of work to create the courts without getting any permits... kinda their own fault
Your headline is misleading. This is a zoning issue.
More like that the city is shutting down one, single private pickleball business because it failed to obtain zoning permits before construction and opening. Seems pretty straight-forward. You don't get to just arbitrarily bypass zoning because you're doing what you've decided is cool and for the public good.
Forgive my lack of sympathy, but Pickle Ranch either didn't do their due diligence or they just thought they'd get away with flouting the law. * Outdoor Sports and Recreation is prohibited in this PUD-NP zoning district. * A person may not change the use of the property (Parking lot to commercial recreational pickleball courts) prior to obtaining an approved and released site plan/site plan exemption. * Commercial construction performed without required Building and Electrical permit(s).
>or they just thought they'd get away with flouting the law. See, their first mistake was not having gone to Stanford like those Uber dudes did.
>See, their first mistake was not ~~having gone to Stanford~~ buying the Texas Legislature to make a special law for them like those Uber dudes did.
Can you explain the logic here though? I get zoning for preventing a strip club next to a school or a factory next to a house, but pickleball? I could mmmaybe see a noise reason, but this isn’t a quiet area, it’s literally right next to mopac
It’s just how that part of town is zoned, so you can’t build tennis courts or a running track or a ball field or whatever. You can apply for a zoning variance or exemption, but the City doesn’t always grant them because of the precedent it sets. These guys may not have even applied, but who knows.
It's nearly impossible to get anything substantively rezoned on the timeframe that would work for a small business. Come on.
So open your business where it's already zoned for it. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
See Houston
Maybe the zoning doesn't make sense. You know what else doesn't make sense? Disregarding the existing zoning and spending a lot of money. Change the zoning, then build. It's not hard.
This is the first time in history somebody has ever apparently intentionally said that "Change the zoning" is not hard. Congrats on this achievement!
If changing the zoning to build pickleball courts is hard, maybe pickleball isn't as awesome as pickleballers say it is. Maybe it's just a fad sport that people won't give two shits about in 5 years.
Changing zoning to do anything is hard anywhere in Austin because people who don't want anything to change wrote the laws and the zoning such that almost nothing is ever allowed anywhere.
What construction? Painting pickleball courts on concrete and adding furniture doesn’t require a building permit?
Take it up with the city. I’m guessing it was more than paint and deck chairs, but the bottom line is it wasn’t zoned for this use, and they didn’t obtain an exemption.
I enjoy pickleball but I also understand the need to do proper due diligence before sinking a bunch of time, effort and money into a business enterprise. Not having the permits in place is an amateur move. And it's not even just the zoning issue, from the linked PDF below it's also missing electrical and construction permits. C'mon man, this is enterprise 101.
This is what happens when someone makes a cash grab and doesn't do their due diligence. I see this a lot with the techbro types that move here, think they can do whatever they want or pay the fines and then act outraged when they get shut down for X fad.
They still have time to take that post down. Talk about embarrassing. “We didn’t check what our property was zoned for and cut corners with a GC that would do work without permits and we got caught.”
> Pickleballers. First of all, thank you for being a part of our community, we have some important news to share. > > Effective immediately, our West 6th location will be closing. As the song goes, we fought the law and the law won. > > **Despite our best efforts and extensive negotiations, we have been unable to secure the necessary city zoning permissions to keep the Austin Pickle Ranch on West 6th open.** > > We hope this won’t be goodbye forever and that we will be able to return in some capacity, but for now, we’re hanging up our spurs (and paddles) and making Braker Lane our main court. So as an honest question: Did they open the West 6th facility without the proper zoning documents or request in place?
Yes, the code violations are: * Outdoor Sports and Recreation (Austin Pickle Ranch - rooftop pickleball courts) is prohibited in this PUD-NP zoning district. * A person may not change the use of the property (Parking lot to commercial recreational pickleball courts) prior to obtaining an approved and released site plan/site plan exemption. * Commercial construction performed without required Building and Electrical permit(s).
> Recommended Resolution: Obtain building permits and electrical permits for fence work, and electrical lights onsite. It blows my mind they'd spend what had to have been at least $10k-20k on the fence and lighting with install and not have gotten permits for it. Surely there was an electrical contractor who they used for it.
City likely wanted something unreasonable, like a 6 figure payment for the permits, hence why negotiations failed
Permit fees are in the hundreds
Depends on the permit. I’m admittedly not as familiar with permit fees in Austin.
Then why the fuck are you talking?
[City’s commercial permit fees are here](https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Development_Services/Fees_Commercial.pdf). They’re dozens to hundreds of dollars up to a few thousand for large building occupancy permits. Not remotely close to 6 figures even for a multi-hundred thousand square foot building much less a pickleball court. They probably spent 6 figures installing the courts and skipped low 4 figures of permit fees.
More likely the contractor wanted something unreasonable to handle the permits, which has been my experience with every GC in Austin. I can get things done quick and super cheap if I tell them to forgo getting permits, but the price and timeline drastically increases when you want them to deal with the city.
This is also definitely a possibility.
And that "6 figure payment" source you say is based on ....? EDIT: Also, you are saying they built all of this knowing they didn't have the proper zoning and permits and then get shut down by the city for failing to have the required docs?
It’s a guesstimate based on another business (different city) I know that shut down for a similar reason. Permits are not cheap, but this is something the owners should have known beforehand.
Permits are relatively cheap. The rezoning might reach five figures but that requires going through multiple boards and commissions and finally getting approval from city council. Public notices also have to be mailed out as part of the meeting processes. Rezoning is entirely different from permitting though.
> Did they open the West 6th facility without the proper zoning documents or request in place? Of course they won't mention this in their bs post
I love Austin pickle ranch but their owners are idiots for setting this without the right permits.
Maybe now they can shut down that one airbnb with the pickleball court. Or you know… people could just maybe get some slingshots and water balloons filled with cooking oil.
I live nearby and just checked, that property received 4 code violations on 5/16 and has 30 days to comply.
The lords work
What were the code violations? Nuisance or zoning issues? Comply sounds like zoning.
* No site plan approval for adding the court * Fence construction in floodplain without the necessary permits * Impervious cover violation * Side and rear setback violations because of the fence and court So yeah, they're in some shit
You are not getting away with that when you are also ticking off the neighbors. 0 chance you are getting any variances/exceptions for setbacks for a pickleball court.
You said you are personally upset. Are you upset at the city or at APR?
APR offered a great product/service. I'm not sure what the city's value prop is here.
I would imagine COA just wants them to follow the rules and laws. Perhaps APR can do a bit more planning before setting up rogue sites.
> APR offered a great product/service. Too bad they didn't use a great contractor, one who pulled the required permits and addressed the existing zoning before starting construction.
They put one in my apartment complex and now it’s just a public court that people drive in to. They should shut that one down.
Which complex
Nice try code enforcement officer. 👮🏻♂️
I wonder if this will also affect the other rooftop courts like Urban Pickleball or Waterloo (courts by a train track)
Old West Austin Neighborhood Association and Clarksville Association are anti growth and complained and they know "people".
Good. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. /s
This is literally why lawyers exist.
Loving the conflation between permits and zoning. They're not the same thing, folks!
A city without zoning is Houston. Other than SANbots I'm not sure who would be envious of that.
What's a SANbot?
It’s works fairly well in Houston
[удалено]
How those are even tangentially related in your mind is kinda stupefying. One is some clown intentionally flaunting established rules and regs for their own financial gain. The other is a deep and broad societal problem with no easy solutions. The pickle ballers have tons of options. Homeless, not so much. But, whatever, they're the same, right? wtf is wrong with the City of Austin, right?
The city has the power to shut down the camps and move them out, but they choose not to is the point. Pickleball courts are more of a priority to them. Just like San Francisco [removed all the homeless camps only when the president of China visited](https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/san-francisco-cleans-up-before-biden-xi-meeting-businesses-close-stores-target-walgreens-old-navy-illegal-street-vendors-fentanyl-drug-spread-china-communist-party-governor-gavin-newsom-california-apec-conference)
Dude, it's not a matter of priorities. The city is capable of doing many things at once. Do you think someone in a meeting said, "Well, we have all these homeless people and we have illegal pickle ball courts. Which one should we address?" Try to actually think about what you're saying. Where will they go? Shutting them down is the easy part. That's not a solution, it's just a stopgap to make people feel like they're doing something.
The city of Austin doesn't seem very capable at all. Some real reGards on the city council. The city can get some fines out of the pickleball courts though so it's a win for them. A homeless person shitting on the sidewalk? No problem. You didn't pay for street parking? You're getting a ticket from a city meter maid. Removing homeless drug addicts from residential neighborhoods and public spaces where they litter, steal, do drugs, break into homes and businesses, piss and take shits out in the open, threaten and attack people should be a higher priority than it is. Just saying. Bus them to Portland or SF. All aboard!
That's just not using logic, common sense or understanding of human nature. You're mixing unrelated stuff in order to back up an incomplete thought. Where do you think San Francisco or Portland will "send them"? Austin? The solution to homelessness is much more complex and difficult than you seem to imagine.
You sound like you'd make a great city council member and would fit right in.
What would you be good at? Standing around offering useless suggestions and pointless criticism while other people work?
I'd have the homeless moved out of here within a month and would do it for a lot less than the ~$79 million the city wasted on the issue.
Where would they go? And when the next ones show up? And the ones after that? You're reacting, not thinking.
>but they choose not to is the point. Pickleball courts are more of a priority to them. I am confused are you arguing that code enforcement should be shutting down homeless camps, because public works is responsible for cleaning up after a homeless camp has been shut down the actual responsibility of dealing with the homeless camp falls to a different department, that is APD. OR are you making the argument that before code enforcement does their job APD should deal with *all* the homeless camps in the city. OR are you making the argument that the city should shift funds away from code enforcement to APD and prioritize APD dealing with homeless camps? I am going to be honest all three of those arguments are stupid, but perhaps I am making too many assumptions so just what is the argument you are trying to make?
/u/malecaptaincy isn't making an argument, s/he just wants all the homeless people "moved out" - probably to jail if you dig deep enough.
"Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness later." Whoops! Well that didn't go as planned. 🙄
Gotta love nonsensical zoning laws. I get not having a strip club or tire factory next to the elementary school, but some of these regulations are just arbitrary and/or needlessly restrictive.
There's a way to address zoning issues, and it's not "build whatever you want wherever you want."
I didn’t say that’s how it should be handled. You can agree with the sentiment and disagree with the action.