The potential move of Gorham High School tennis courts to Robie Park has stirred up concerns. Robert Lowell / American Journal

The relocation of tennis courts from Gorham High School to nearby Robie Park, as approved by the Town Council Aug. 6 to be included in a November referendum, has netted a stir.

Mike Chabot, vice chair of the town’s Robie Park Master Plan Steering Committee, said adding tennis courts would throw the entire, recently town-approved park plan into jeopardy. “A lot of people are unhappy,” Chabot told the American Journal last week and he wants a Town Council reconsideration vote.

The park plan includes a gateway, restrooms, picnic area, playground, benches, basketball courts and new trees.

The expense of moving tennis courts is wrapped into $12 million the school department is asking voters to borrow for facilities improvements. The high school campus off Morrill Avenue is cramped and school officials want $9 million to expand for projected enrollment increases. The school department proposed to replace four decaying tennis courts with five new courts, costing $2.5 million, at the middle school on Weeks Road.

Town Councilor Phil Gagnon, chair of the Robie Park committee, in the council’s Aug. 6 meeting moved an amendment relocating courts to the park where they could replace plans for basketball courts.

The other six councilors agreed, but now a town councilor has second thoughts and the matter will likely be revisited in September.

“I am asking to reconsider the decision because it was the wrong decision. It doesn’t comply with the Robie Park Master Plan, and the proposed change was brushed over without enough discussion,” Town Councilor Virginia Wilder Cross said in an email Monday to the American Journal.

A sign says “Save Robie Park. Preserve the legacy for future generations.” Robert Lowell / American Journal

Chabot, a park neighbor and also a member of a citizens’ park advocacy group, said he wasn’t aware in advance of any possible council action relocating tennis court in the park. “People were blindsided by it,” he said.

Gagnon, a former School Committee member, told the American Journal that a facilities study indicated that a potential new elementary school within a decade could be built at the middle school site where the tennis courts would go.

Also, the Town Council Capital Improvements Committee, Gagnon said, has been working months on master planning for fields. Gagnon said the committee didn’t think spending “$2.5 million for tennis courts” then destroying them in less than 10 years was a good use of the town’s money.

“I was a ‘no’ vote on the tennis courts until other councilors tried to save it by placing them elsewhere and changed my vote to ‘yes’ when they would not be located at the middle school,” Gagnon said.

Tim Spear, the high school’s athletic director, is also a member of the Robie Park committee. Spear said the middle school is a “great site” to accommodate school tennis, Recreation Department and community use. Spear said challenges at Robie Park include parking and “it makes it really tight to have five tennis courts on two basketball courts.”

Spear said six tennis courts would be preferred. “We would like the middle school site,” he said.

Chabot fears placing tennis courts in Robie Park adds more pavement, creating “heat islands.”

But, Gagnon said, “substituting one hard surface court area for another seems like a natural remedy, and reduces costs of transporting students off site.”

A movement to save the park ramped up two years ago after the school department, citing safety concerns and with council approval, ordered a pine grove removed near the softball field in the park where the high school plays.

Then Friends of Robie Park and other residents feared the 6.7-acre park was doomed. They lobbied town officials and the Robie Park committee was formed to develop a park master plan that the council approved earlier this year.

“I thought we were done,” Chabot said. “(The tennis courts) created another swirl.”

The park was named in honor of Gorham’s Martha Robie, widow of a historic governor, Frederick Robie.