Martinez's New Parks Wish List Keeps Landing at Waterfront Park

Where in Martinez can a city put eight pickleball courts so the neighbors can live with them? The city spent most of a year on that question at Hidden Valley Park and gave up in March. The answer it is testing now sits in the draft of a document most residents haven't opened: the Park System Master Plan, which is open for public review this fall.

The plan will guide parks, open space and recreation spending for 15 years. According to Martinez News and Views, it is the first update in roughly two decades. Most of its pages deal with restrooms, pathways and shade. The new amenities it proposes are another matter. When one of them could bring noise, cars or crowds, the draft tends to send it to the same few places, and Waterfront Park comes up again and again.

The Courts That Set the Terms

The Hidden Valley Sports Courts opened on February 28, 2025. The project turned two tennis courts into eight pickleball courts, and Martinez News and Views reported that they were an immediate hit. The city's own account lists a string of fixes it tried over the following year after noise, traffic and parking complaints from nearby homes:

1. Signage and parking advisories
2. Two structured trial periods with revised operating hours
3. New court-specific rules
4. A push for quieter equipment
5. A survey of residents within 500 feet of the courts
6. An ambassador program staffed by pickleball volunteers
7. An independent acoustical engineer who specializes in pickleball noise

The engineer concluded that no feasible mitigation could fix the noise at that location. On March 18, 2026, the City Council voted to permanently end pickleball at Hidden Valley, effective immediately. The tennis court and the renovated half-court basketball court stayed open, and the city said it would look for new pickleball sites through the master plan.

Martinez News and Views quoted Mayor Brianne Zorn at that meeting: "The use of the courts is way more intense than we expected." The same report said every council member wanted to find a new site for pickleball, though none named one.

By September, the same outlet reported that the council had paused plans to convert the closed courts to tennis. Six months after the vote, the city still hadn't decided what those eight courts would become.

What Residents Asked For

The first round of outreach ran from January 15 through February 28, 2026. It drew 969 online survey responses and more than 180 people to community sessions at Grace Episcopal Church, John Muir Elementary, the IBEW Local 302 Hall and Alhambra High School.

Upkeep came first. Sixty-eight percent picked maintaining and revitalizing existing parks as the plan's top priority. Adding new amenities such as dog parks, splash pads and sports courts came second at 46%. Forty-one percent said a lack of restrooms or shade kept them from visiting parks, which made it the top barrier on the survey.

When the survey asked about specific new features, splash pads led at 36%. A skate park or pump track drew 20%. The survey also named Waterfront Park as the most visited location in the whole system. Waterfront, Hidden Lakes, Nancy Boyd and Hidden Valley together serve as the main recreation hubs.

So the city's most-used park is also the one being asked to take on the most new uses.

Where the Draft Puts the New Ideas

At a September council workshop, the city's consultant laid out the draft recommendations. That was Casey Case of the landscape architecture firm Gates Studio. Each item below is a draft recommendation, and the plan itself has not been adopted.

Waterfront Park shows up in three rows. Two of those ideas are pickleball and an all-wheels track, the kinds of activity that bring sound and crowds. Hidden Valley gets the quieter ideas: water play, a garden and a skills course out in the open space.

The draft also suggests a joint-use agreement with schools for courts and fields. It also proposes asking future developers to set aside parkland.

The Dog Park Debate Follows the Same Pattern

The proposed second dog park shows how siting works in practice. At the September workshop, according to Martinez News and Views, several residents spoke against a dog park at Golden Hills Park, as more than one council member had done earlier.

Vice Mayor Satinder S. Malhi put it plainly in that report: "I absolutely do not support a dog park at Golden Hills Park, period." He suggested looking at the northern part of Hidden Valley Park instead. His reasons were that homes sit farther away there and access is easier for dog owners.

That is the Hidden Valley pickleball lesson applied to a new amenity. The council is weighing the distance to the nearest homes from the start, before anything gets built. Pine Meadow and Waterfront remain on the candidate list.

Most of the Plan Is Still About Upkeep

The draft's first priority matches the survey's. Renovate, upgrade and replace aging amenities across the system, then add new recreation, then look for partnerships or new land. In parks, staff recommends repaving pathways and renovating play areas for safety and accessibility. It also calls for adding and replacing ADA-compliant site furniture and adding shade structures and trees.

Restroom renovations are named at two parks, Mountain View and Waterfront. That puts Waterfront Park on both lists. It would get basic repairs as the most-visited park, and it would take on new uses that other sites couldn't keep.

Here are the facility ideas outside the main parks:

• A redesigned Senior Center with multipurpose rooms
• Indoor and outdoor upgrades at the Kiwanis Youth Center so it can host public use and event rentals
• A possible parcel purchase next to Mountain View Park for a new community facility
• Rental clubhouses at Hidden Valley and Rankin parks

For open space, staff wants a formal trail network with better signage, safety and accessibility. The draft links open spaces into what it calls a "greater green network" and adds new trails. Case described the whole plan modestly at the workshop: "This is a long-term guiding document, so it's not necessarily incredibly specific on where every trash can will go, but it is clear."

Before It Reaches the Council

The city's project page lists the current phase as the public review period. Multiple public meetings are planned before the Council votes, though no dates had been posted as of mid-October. The same page gives the timing two ways. In one place it says Council adoption is "tentatively expected winter 2026." In another it says "late 2026." According to Martinez News and Views, staff hoped to bring a draft back to the council by the end of the year.

To weigh in:

• Read the draft: The project page links the August 18 Parks, Recreation, Marina & Arts Commission presentation, the staff report, and separate recommendations for parks, open space and facilities.
• Send comments: Email [email protected], or call the Engineering Department at 925-372-3516.
• See what neighbors said: The Round 1 results summary breaks down the survey answers question by question.
• Pick your park: If you play pickleball, comments about Waterfront Park matter most right now. Dog owners near Pine Meadow, Waterfront or north Hidden Valley should look at the candidate sites.

The plan is also part of the city's sesquicentennial year, which marks 150 years since Martinez incorporated.

At the Lupe Kemper Team, we follow this kind of plan because a park nearby shapes daily life on the surrounding streets. A new court or dog park changes things too. If you'd like to talk through how the proposals near your street might affect your home, request a free home valuation and we'll go over it together.