Stuart Hirst, on behalf of North Otago Tennis, outlined the code’s aspirations to the 2025-34 Long Term Plan hearing this week.
He said the sport was seeing significant growth but was limited by facilities.
Mr Hirst noted the North Otago tennis championships last weekend was its biggest "in many years".
The club has 222 junior members, 70 seniors and 35 masters players. It also now has the 60-strong Tongan Tennis Club under its banner.
"We’ve had huge growth in our numbers, particularly around our juniors," Mr Hirst said.
But the grass courts were a limitation on the sport’s competitive edge.
"One of the things we suffer from is a very short season compared to other regions because of the grass courts.
"Five months compared to year-round in other areas," Mr Hirst said.
This put North Otago juniors and seniors at "a significant disadvantage".
They had assessed other courts locally but none were of suitable scope "to play competitively".
While some sites had "reasonable courts" the other facilities at those sites needed to support the game were lacking, Mr Hirst said.
Meantime, North Otago Tennis growth was putting stress on the existing Chelmer St setup.
"Our courts are wearing out.
"That’s our fault — we use them too much over five months and we’ve got too many people.
"What we’re proposing for the future of Waitaki and North Otago tennis is to put in modern courts that will not wear out and can be used all year round — and can be safe for all of our community to use."
That included suitable shade to lesson the UV risk to players; it will utilise a hard court with a cushioned playing surface.
"We’re proposing six covered courts for the future development of Chelmer St to take us to where every other region is.
"We need your support."
The club realised it had work to raise significant funding but wanted council backing, Mr Hirst said.
"Ideally you would say, this is such a great idea, we’d fund the whole thing."
A council offer of 50% backing "would be amazing" but 35% seed funding would also be a good first step, he said.
