SWAMPSCOTT — Town Meeting members voted against authorizing the town to use state grant funding to build four pickleball courts at Phillips Park Monday night at the Special Town Meeting.

Those in opposition to Article 4, a motion allowing the town to use roughly $56,000 in Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations grant funds for the estimated $103,873 pickleball court construction project, opposed the proposal by a two-vote margin — narrowly missing the required two-thirds majority needed to pass the motion.

The 106-57 vote (a roughly 65% majority “yes” vote) followed a lengthy and lively debate in which those in opposition to the warrant article expressed concerns about excessive noise that might come from the pickleball courts as well as Phillips Park’s location on a flood plain.

“I’ve walked the path over to Phillips Park. It’s wet all spring. It is soaking wet. We need to preserve our wetlands… This is a coastal community. We can’t possibly put a hard surface over wetlands. There must be another place in this town at a higher level to have the pickleball courts,” Town Meeting member Jim Smith said.

Smith, who lives near Phillips Park, added that the park is located close to an assisted living facility, and the noise levels from the courts would be “extremely irritating” to those who neighbor the park.

In response to residents’ concerns over the proposed courts’ flood vulnerability, Conservation Commission Chair Tonia Bandrowicz said that although the portion of Phillips Park that would have been used for pickleball courts is located in a flood zone, not a wetland, meaning the town would not necessarily be prohibited from building a platform in the area.

Community and Economic Development Director Marzie Galazka, who presented the pickleball courts as a way to “the fastest growing sport in the country” to Swampscott, also assured residents that if approved by Town Meeting, the project design proposals would have had to receive Conservation Commission approval. She said work would not have started until July 1.

“I just want to point out that that’s something that we take very seriously — building resiliency and assuring that our infrastructure is safe and that our residents are able to have safe facilities,” Galazka said. “We assure that we will look at the current best practices for the design.”

Town Meeting lasted for roughly two hours, and it was followed by a unanimous vote to approve a $1 million transfer of “free cash” to offset residents’ tax burden in 2024 and a unanimous vote to pass a bylaw regulating food establishments’ use of single-use plastics and Styrofoam takeout containers.