Managing padel-court siting near housing: guideline adherence shortfalls and populations at risk – national evidence from France

The rapid rise of padel in Europe, and of pickleball in North America, has created noise-related land-use conflicts in residential areas. Guidance recommends minimum setback distances, yet there has been no nationwide assessment of how many sites fall short or which populations may be exposed. We develop a GIS screening approach that combines proximity (edge-to-edge distance) and visibility (line-of-sight, LoS) to flag potentially high-exposure configurations and quantify affected residents, framed by urban-morphology and environmental-justice debates. We compiled a database of 878 active padel sites in metropolitan France from open sources, geocoded each site, and classified them by distance from the nearest dwelling and presence of effective built screens. For sites falling short of recommended setbacks (Class 1), we identified residential buildings within 100 m, determined LoS, and allocated population and households to buildings by dasymetric floor-area weighting of INSEE 200 m grid data. The screen deliberately trades acoustic modelling for scalability and transparency. Nearly one third of sites (271/878, 30.9%) were Class 1, with higher concentrations in lower-density communes. Across these sites we identified an estimated 17,100 residents living within 100 m of a padel court. Buildings with direct LoS were closer on average than screened buildings and accounted for most residents within 50 m. Combining proximity and visibility in a GIS screen pinpoints where racket-sport noise exposure is most plausible. The results support context-modulated setbacks, distance-triggered acoustic studies, and post-implementation follow-up, and offer planners a reproducible, low-cost tool that complements detailed acoustic modelling.