Posted on 01/13/2019 6:34:45 AM PST by dennisw
When Mitch Steller first moved into his house on a lush 117-acre golf course in Southern California, “this was like the Garden of Eden, having a golf course in my backyard,” he said.
Today, his Poway, Calif., home overlooks dry, dead grass in place of a once-verdant fairway. The golf club closed in 2017. “The fairways are brown, the greens are gone, the buildings are being vandalized,” says Mr. Steller, a 70-year-old maritime-management consultant.
Forty years after developers started blanketing the Sunbelt with housing developments built around golf, many courses are closing amid a decline in golf participation, leaving homeowners to grapple with the consequences. People often believe a course will bolster their property values. But many are discovering the opposite can now be true—and legal disputes are erupting as communities fight over how to handle the struggling courses.
“There are hundreds of other communities in this situation, and they’re trapped and they don’t know what to do,” says Peter Nanula, chief executive of Concert Golf Partners, a golf club owner-operator that owns about 20 private clubs across the U.S. One of his current projects is the rehabilitation of a recently acquired club in Florida that had shut one of its three golf courses and sued residents who had stopped paying membership fees.
(Excerpt) Read more at outline.com ...
Build high density, 4 story concentrated apartnent buildings on the former golf course. Attract welfare loafers with gibmedat freebies. Just hope the gubmint does not shut down.
I think turn it into a dirt bike riding area. Hills, jumps, water holes and mud. After the park opens up dry grass will look beautiful in comparison. You won’t have anyone looking for lost golf balls in the backyard but maybe some spare gas in the garage.
I live near the StoneRidge club in Poway and owned a rental property in an adjacent community that backed up on the 16th fairway of a course that also has closed (both in San Diego County). What the article fails to mention are the exploding costs of operating and maintaining golf courses, particularly for water. In the cases I cite, the clubs fell victim to new tiered water rates (think “progressive” tax rates) and were paying up to four times the amount as previously. Neither club could afford to pay the exorbitant costs. Water rates for homeowners throughout the area have also skyrocketed, thanks to govt. mismanagement, environmentalist whacko activism, and general stupidity. The solution to California’s water problems is desalination of Pacific Ocean water, now economically feasible. One plant has recently opened in San Diego, but it took 15 years to fight through all the bureaucracy and lawsuits. Six more of such plants can provide all the water needs of the our very large county — 90 miles x 70 miles — with beaches, inland valleys, mountains, and deserts.
Once I gave up golf for good, I moved to a home on a pond wherein my chief concern now is if an alligator decides to waddle up. Life has its risks, just depends what you want to put up with. My only specific reaction to this article is to be alert to potential risks when you buy a piece of property, both physical and financial. Pay your money take your chances.
Turn it into tenant farms. Good possibility that returns the land to its prior use.
In November 1991, leaving Korea enroute to Japan and Camp Zama, I was told part of my official duties as the NCOIC for DPCA was to ensure 80+ MWR facilities were properly secured (fixed in three weeks as I handled my orientation, and secondly to play Golf. In Japan Golf was the currency of millionaires with status. I played for three years, left Japan and sold my clubs never to play again. I hate golf. However, being in the concrete jungle called Tokyo or the small towns, the noise of the modern world can never reach a silent pitch - but on the golf course you didn’t hear a car, and you saw a stream, ponds, birds, rabbits, squirrels, hawks, ect., and the sounds natural. Golf in Japan serves to bring the city dwellers back to nature, but only for those who can afford it.
In many instances, developers retained an interest in the golf course, clubhouse, and residual development rights. This permits a wide range of profiteering. Or, the developer sold the clubhouse and course to the country club at an inflated price, which then had to ding the members for decades to pay off the debt. In short, many golf courses have embedded excess costs.
I figured as much. it’s like that show Longmire set in a back woods county of Wyoming...where they have more crime n killings than Chitcago.
My strategy has always been to do things that KEEP ME OUT OF THE BARS AND OFF THE GOLF COURSE.
I have some rental property that at least I make some money with my time. I try to have hobbies that at least break even.
FRISBEE GOLF
Live near a Frisbee Golf course. It stays busy and actually attracts quality people. The young have a preoccupation instead of vandalism.
Good point. While an HOA is supposed to be a vehicle for enhancing property values, it can be a nightmare when taken over by people who feel the need to be important in order to give meaning to their lives.
Our golf course is well managed and thoughtfully coordinated with the HOA that maintains soft handed order to keep the community in good shape. Maybe it's because we have a good many ex-Californians who respect self determination and personal liberties.
We moved here from a golf community where a lot of PIPs (previously important people) kept teh community in constant turmoil. It was like high school, but with money.
My late mother lived in apartments next to golf courses in San Diego County for the last 20 years of her life. She never, to my knowledge played the game. Did suffer some broken windows. But it was nice having a open view and she did enjoy watching them play the game. Golfers, by far, are not the worst sort of strangers have walking near your house. But, there was, a couple of years ago, talk of restricting the water that courses could use. I wonder if the course in question wasn’t killed because of that.
I once bought a lifetime membership at a video rental store.
Oh. So sad. My, my.
But hey. It might be a good place to stock quail and pheasant …just saying.
“The bottom line is that socialism never works, and collective ownership of a golf course is just another take on socialism.”
What about collective ownership of a company by those who are stock holders?
If she apologized all should be forgiven. When people gotta go, people gotta go.
Actually golf stand for “Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden” Ah the good old days in Scotland.
Rezoned area around original club house could include tennis courts and bike paths. Fees drop - community use expands...
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