The arrival of spring means the seasonal tennis bubble at Liberty Park soon will be coming down.
And tennis players throughout the Salt Lake Valley will be crossing their fingers that the change is not permanent.
The 27,000-square-foot bubble that covers four tennis courts at the Salt Lake City park has been the focus of a legal battle for nearly four years. It has survived two rounds of approvals and appeals and now is in the midst of a third.
"The fear is, if it gets to 3rd District Court, that a judge could make the wrong decision," said Debra Lund, a year-round tennis player at Liberty Park.
Melissa Barbanell, a lawyer and park neighbor, has been leading the bubble-busting charge since the beginning, arguing that Salt Lake City officials did not follow proper procedure in allowing the bubble to be erected.
Barbanell has said she's bothered by the way the city's Planning and Zoning Division approved the bubble's construction in a historic site without a hearing of the Historic Landmark Commission. Liberty Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
She plans to appeal the commission's recent decision to legalize the previous construction of the bubble, which has been in place at the park during winter months since November 2004.
Pending the outcome of an administrative appeal, Barbanell could take the issue to 3rd District Court for a second time.
The ongoing bubble battle is frustrating for tennis players, said Debbie Robb, director of Liberty Park tennis. About 5,000 people regularly use the courts, including area high school teams, seniors, at-risk youths and low-income people.
At $4 per hour, it's a low-cost alternative to other indoor tennis facilities in the Salt Lake Valley.
"We provide such a great service to so many people," Robb said. "It's just silly that we've got one neighbor who's holding the rest of us hostage."
The $750,000 bubble was donated to the city by a group of tennis advocates, and the Salt Lake City Council approved money for upgrades to install it.
The legal battle started in June 2004, when installation of the bubble received administrative approval from the city. That decision was reviewed and upheld in January 2005 by the city's Board of Adjustment and then taken to the 3rd District Court, where a judge instructed the city to start over with the decision-making process.
Another round of approvals and appeals began in June 2006, when city staff approved a certificate of appropriateness for the tennis bubble. City staff concluded that the bubble was a minor alteration and that approval from the Historic Landmark Commission was not needed because Liberty Park is the landmark site, not the tennis courts.
The city's Board of Adjustment in July 2006 upheld the decision, which again was appealed to the court.
On Nov. 2, 2007, Judge Robert P. Faust ruled against the city, determining that the tennis bubble at Liberty Park was new construction — not a minor modification — to a landmark site. The city was ordered to take the issue back to the Historic Landmark Commission to re-evaluate the bubble.
That review took place last month, with the commission again granting approval.
Barbanell has said she's not satisfied with the review, saying commissioners too easily accepted the staff report on the bubble and didn't evaluate or analyze the ordinance.
Jill Remington Love, Salt Lake City Council chairwoman, said the bubble battle has been a "good lesson" for the city, demonstrating that historic parks and historic neighborhoods are different from one another and probably should be governed by separate ordinances.
"It's probably not the best idea to be using the same ordinance at the landmarks commission to make those decisions," Love said.
Though Love said she believes the tennis bubble is a good thing for the park, "that doesn't mean we went through the right process to get the bubble."
"Having said that, we have now," she said. "We've taken it to the Historic Landmarks Commission, they've made a decision, and I think they made the right decision."
Robb is pushing for a revised ordinance that specifically addresses historic parks.
"The historic nature of the park is something that ought to be preserved," she said. "But it also should be a park that all sorts of people can use for all sorts of activities. They shouldn't have to worry about one neighbor trying to push her weight around and get her way."
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com