SIDE STREETS: Neighborhood victory is par for the course
Sometimes, even when a neighborhood loses, it wins.
Residents surrounding the Gleneagle Golf Course have spent more than a year, and thousands of dollars fighting a plan to convert the 10.5-acre driving range into 47 patio homes. You might expect them to be depressed after the El Paso County Commission voted 3-2 on July 9 to approve a zoning change clearing the way for the patio homes.
Instead, they celebrated.
“This is a major victory for the Gleneagle community,” opposition leader Doug Jenkins told his troops after the vote.
Come again? Golf course owner Miles Scully, a San Diego attorney, gets his re-zoning request approved and the opposition talks smack?
“I do feel we won,” Jenkins said. “We’re pretty pleased with where we are now.”
Jenkins is happy because it was not a pure rezoning. Commissioner Wayne Williams attached a string to the approval that could end up hanging Scully and his patio-home project.
Williams gave Scully about a year to submit a development agreement that essentially protects the remaining 93 acres of the golf course from development.
“This is a critical issue,” Williams said. “If it is not addressed, your zoning goes away.”
Jenkins suspects the patio homes will evaporate because he believes the driving range was just the first phase of a plan to convert the entire course into high-density neighborhoods. His fear was shared by the 600 Gleneagle residents who signed a petition opposing Scully’s project.
A new subdivision would be worth a lot more than a struggling golf course, which Scully said has suffered six-digit losses each year since he paid $825,000 for it in 2003. It would not benefit neighbors, however, who paid a premium to live on a golf course and fear their property values would plunge if they became just another neighborhood.
Golf course marketing director Dean Jones said rezoning increases the property’s value and will allow Scully to borrow against it to invest in improvements, especially a new $1.5 million irrigation system. Money is so tight. Scully eliminated the tennis courts because resurfacing cost too much.
“Mr. Scully really wants this to remain a golf course,” Jones said. “But he’s a businessman and needs to make a profit.”
Neighbors asked the commission if the interests of one business outweigh the investments of hundreds of homeowners. (Folks who also are voters, unlike the absentee golf course owner).
Commissioners said no. Sure, they believe in property rights. And they don’t bow to “mob rule.”
But they don’t owe any business a guarantee of success. Instead, Williams said the commission is obligated to “ensure the general interest of the public are protected.”
Jenkins knows the fight is not over.
“At least now,” he said, “they have to listen to us.”
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