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Article
Courtesy of The By Angel
Streeter
Published
August 6, 2010
Boca Del Mar residents are gearing up to fight another developer who wants to build hundreds of homes on the Mizner Trail Golf Course.
The Siemens Group, based in Boca Raton, has entered a contract to buy the 18-hole golf course located in the middle of the sprawling Boca Del Mar community, west of the city. But the purchase is contingent on the company getting Palm Beach County approval to build 390 homes on the 132-acre course.
It's déjà vu. In the 2000s, residents fought a two-year battle with the golf course owner, Dutch Bliss, who also wanted to build townhomes on part of the golf course. The County Commission rejected that plan in 2006.
"I don't know of anybody who has changed their opinion," said Steve Foster, who lives in Fairway Village, a subdivision of Boca Del Mar. "Homeowners don't want the golf course changed into houses and townhomes."
Bliss closed the golf course in 2005, saying he could not afford to keep it open. Since then, the lush green fairways have been overgrown by weeds and pocked with patches of brown grass. |
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The
Mizner Trail Golf Course remains closed and overgrown. The new owners of
the course in Boca Del Mar want to build 390 homes on it.
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It has become a de facto park. People walk their dogs on it. Teenagers hang out there.
But some residents prefer this open wasteland to the alternatives: parking lots and buildings.
"It's like the Serengeti; it's beautiful," said Brian Coleman, whose home in the La Costa subdivision backs up to the golf course. "There are so few places in Palm Beach County where there are open places."
Now dotting the defunct golf course are signs proposing Siemens' redevelopment.
It's to be 390 homes, a mix of single-family and zero-lot-line houses and townhouses. Most would be townhomes. About 11 acres of the golf course would be set aside for recreation, including a community clubhouse and fitness center replacing the golf clubhouse.
Starting price for the homes would be $300,000, said Richard Siemens, president of the Siemens Group. If the project gets county approval, work wouldn't begin for another year and a half to three years.
The previous ruckus over developing the property hasn't deterred Siemens, who has been meeting with residents and says he's not replicating Bliss' efforts.
"This is one we think is worth a shot," he said. "We've applied and we have to prove our case. If we can't, we shouldn't get it."
Siemens is asking for more homes to be built on the defunct golf course than the previous development proposal. The developer's plans also call for building on most of the golf course while the former proposal took up only 43 acres.
The private Country Club at Boca Raton is the other golf course at the 9,200-home Boca Del Mar community.
Bliss bought the property in 1998 for $8 million, though property records now show it was worth $1.8 million. Bliss planned to keep the golf course temporarily, eventually developing for homes. Expiration of a deed restriction in 2012 would allow development for other uses.
Bliss' plan for 202 townhomes, on holes 3 through 8, was rejected by the County Commission in 2006.
He sued the county for $40 million, the amount he said the land would have been worth if allowed to be developed.
The lawsuit claimed that the county essentially condemned the golf course, by repeatedly denying development applications, yet failing to pay just compensation for doing so.
A judge ruled against the course owner in 2008 and said that the golf course cannot be used for anything but green space.
The fracas over the proposed redevelopment split the Boca Del Mar community between those who live near the golf course and others, including the Boca Del Mar Improvement Association, favoring the development to save at least a portion of the golf course.
Those divisions seem to be sprouting again.
"I hate to see in the middle of Boca Del Mar a piece of land go fallow like this," said Walt Samples, a resident who wants something done with the land. "I think it's an eyesore the way it is now. … You've got to face reality. If the golf course can't make it economically you've got to find another use."
But losing those picturesque views, no matter how degraded they've become, strikes some as unfair.
"The reason we bought there was because of the fairways," Coleman said. "A lot of people paid premiums to get those fairways."
So those homeowners preparing to oppose Siemens' development are dusting off old playbooks and renewing old alliances.
And they're pushing the same concerns — too much traffic, a burden on local schools — about the impact of a redeveloped golf course.
"They should remember, we beat them once," Coleman said.
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