Sarasota residents save their golf course

Jury rules against developer who wanted to sell the land for hundreds of condos.

 

Article Courtesy of  Herald Tribune

By KATHLEEN MCLAUGHLIN
Published December 16, 2005

 

SARASOTA -- Sunrise Golf Club residents moved into their neighborhood believing that the wooded, palm-tree-laden golf course at the center would never be plowed under -- at least not in their lifetime.

On Thursday, a jury decided that they thought right.

The 378 households at Sunrise claimed at least a temporary victory Thursday when a Circuit Court jury agreed that a lease requiring the course to keep operating until 2022 is still good.

Their decision prevents developer Rod Connelly, who bought the 113-acre course for $3 million in 2003, from moving forward with a plan to sell the land to a builder who wants to build 600 to 700 condos.

"I think this means that developers will think twice before they come into an established community and attempt to plow their way through," said Tom Shults, attorney for the Sunrise residents.

The Sunrise case is just one in what could be a series of such challenges in golf-course-heavy Florida.

Skyrocketing land prices and scarce property have prompted developers to look at a new way to feed hungry home buyers: redeveloping properties, including older golf courses.

Forming a coalition from five different condominium and homeowners associations, the Sunrise residents sued Connelly's company, Civix Development, as the Sunrise Road and Maintenance Association in August 2004.

The residents went to court armed with a 99-year lease that most of them had never seen until Civix entered the picture with development plans.

One couple, known in the neighborhood for driving a purple golf cart, dug the lease out of Sarasota County land records.

"One afternoon, Bennie suggested, let's go down there," said Ray Komarek, 83, using his wife Norma's nickname.

"We started fishing through the microfiche," said his wife, 75.

The Komareks declined to say how much the residents spent to defend their course, but Ray Komarek said that the first call for funding raised $54,000.

A lawyer working for homeowners in a similar situation said the Sunrise case is important to any neighborhood built around a golf course.

Stephen Kurvin is representing residents of the Sarasota Golf Club in a suit against Civix Sarasota. Connelly sold his interest in that property, but his lawyer in the Sunrise case, Charles Bartlett, is representing the current owner.

Kurvin has found only four courses in the region where people buying surrounding homes were told that the developer reserved rights to build over the greens.

About 35 others on his list are privately owned, and many were built in conjunction with the homes.

"Every other course in the county is subject to being taken as a home site if Mr. Bartlett wins his case," Kurvin said.

Bartlett said the facts of the Sunrise case, namely the lease, were too unique to provide ammunition to other neighborhoods dueling with developers.

The jury verdict doesn't mean the case is finished.

Bartlett had asked Judge Deno Economou to make his own ruling on the lease and other issues. Economou has not decided whether to do that. He could override the jury.

Connelly still hopes to develop the Sunrise property, either by selling to a builder or finishing a project himself, Bartlett said.

The Komareks and their neighbors were pleased, but they know the victory is not complete.

Bartlett said Connelly will not reopen the course, and he doubted any court would force him to do so.

"I think it's highly unlikely there will ever be a golf course on the property again, even if the plaintiffs prevail," he said.

Residents hoped to push for the course's reopening, Ray Komarek said, but he acknowledged that could take years.
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