Mandatory club fees rupture peace in 

The Hamlet neighborhood in Delray Beach

                             

Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post

By Jane Musgrave

Published April 9, 2008

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Steve Stabile envisioned a far more genteel backdrop for his children.

"I wanted to move to Florida and introduce them to a country club lifestyle," he said. "I wanted them to be able to take golf and tennis lessons when they grow up."

Instead, four years after Stabile moved his wife and two young sons into a house along the fairways of The Hamlet Country Club, he wants out.

"I don't want my children growing up in a hostile environment," he said.

He's been cussed at and threatened. His golfing buddies have been insulted and scorned. He's been denied service in the dining room of the clubhouse that recently underwent a $9.2 million renovation.

The 40-year-old attorney became a lightning rod for his Delray Beach neighbors' wrath when he organized a lawsuit challenging the community's decision to make membership in the county club mandatory - a mandate that costs him more than $22,000 a year.

It also is preventing him for selling his $350,000 home on the market since 2007.

He said potential buyers disappear when they learn they have to pay a $30,000 initiation fee and an annual membership that begins around $18,000.

"We're trapped here," said Stabile's wife, Lisa. "It's like a Godfather movie. You can't get out."

Leo Lazar, who has lived in the community for 20 years, said when hostilities flared, he had to take a stand.

"Part of the reason I joined the lawsuit was that word came out that women would not play cards with the wives of men who had joined the lawsuit," the 89-year-old said.

Most importantly, he said, "They've taken away my property rights."

Such battle cries have been raised at golf club communities throughout Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

"It's an epidemic problem throughout the state," said Fort Lauderdale attorney Gary Poliakoff.

Developed in the 1980s and 1990s, the communities attracted recent retirees who were fit and active. Now, many can no longer play golf, much less tennis, he said. So, they drop memberships.

But, the golf course still has to be mowed and fertilized, the tennis courts resurfaced and the clubhouse maintained. The cost of upkeep has skyrocketed. In 1995, it cost $525,000 a year to maintain an 18-hole golf course in Florida. Today, it costs $1.4 million, says a golf course trade group.

"Mandatory membership is portrayed as inherently evil," said attorney Michael Hyman, who is defending The Hamlet in the lawsuit. "But there's great merit to it."

Without the fees, the courses won't be properly maintained or the land will be sold.

"It's one thing to say I don't want to join but it's another thing to be looking out over overgrown fairways or townhouses," said Poliakoff.

The collapse of the housing market has fueled discontent because people are strapped for cash, Hyman said.

Those who complain that their property values are hurt because of the fees are being shortsighted, said Port St. Lucie attorney Larry Glickman, who has helped about 20 communities institute mandatory membership. If the country club disappears, so does a chunk of a home's value, he said.

Still, recent court decisions have bouyed those who object to being forced to join country clubs.

Last year, mandatory membership fees were struck down in the 2,900-unit Aberdeen Golf & Country Club west of Boynton Beach, the 324-home Ironhorse Country Club in West Palm Beach and the 375-home Willoughby Golf Club in Stuart.

While the Willoughby case was ultimately settled, the rulings in the two Palm Beach County cases are being appealed.

The Ironhouse homeowners association is claiming Circuit Judge Kenneth Stern erred when he ruled the fees altered "owners' expectations by destroying . . . the general scheme of the community." In the Aberdeen case, the property association claims Circuit Judge David French's decision should be throw out because he had an ax to grind.

French lives in The Hamlet.

While he wrote letters blasting The Hamlet's handling of mandatory membership fees, he insisted he wasn't biased.

One of his stated concerns was the board's decision to settle a lawsuit with about 20 homeowners who challenged the fees shortly after they were imposed in 2003. The board agreed to exempt those who filed the suit from the requirement that they sell their homes to people who would join the club.

Such exemptions loom large in the Stabile's pending lawsuit. Residents of the community's 134 condominiums are exempt, as are those who were part of the original lawsuit and those who bought before 2003 and didn't join.

Of the community's 444 homeowners, Stabile estimated less than 250 are members - something he said he wasn't told when he bought his house in 2004 and club fees were about $10,000 annually. In addition to being told there were no plans to increase fees, he said he was told that everyone paid them.

The exemptions lead to peculiar situations, he said. For instance, he can't take his parents to dinner in the clubhouse because they live in the community but weren't forced to join the country club.

Alan Goldstein, president of the property owners association, said the restriction is to spur non-members to join.

Most people understand the need for the fees, he said. He estimated only 15 percent are backing the lawsuit.

But, Stabile said, support is growing. Started by four homeowners in early 2007, there are now 47 in the lawsuit.

Lazar said he wishes the dispute could be settled amicably.

"We'd just like to tell them: 'There's certain things we would like to see changed,'" he said. "How did we become enemies?"

 

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