Residents take aim at infill housing plan on Kingswood golf course
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/02/2019 (1862 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A developer’s plan to “slice and dice” parts of Kingswood Golf and Country Club to build infill housing is way out of bounds, as far as one nearby homeowner is concerned.
“My real concern is this is the start,” says Jim Brousseau, whose 1.5-acre property near La Salle backs onto the 18th hole and who opposes the development, which he fears may spell doom for the course.
“Once you start to take part of it away, you make it unplayable, or less playable, and eventually it folds.”
Developer Paul Pfrimmer is not a faceless stranger, either. Pfrimmer is the councillor for that ward in the RM of Macdonald. The course is just outside the town of La Salle, about a 10-minute drive from Kenaston Boulevard and the Perimeter Highway.
Among Pfrimmer’s plans is a new house replacing the pond located left of the first green, another just off the 18th fairway in a well-trod area for target-challenged golfers, a third at the far end of the driving range and another three elsewhere.
Brousseau said he gets “all kinds of golf balls” in his yard now, as do other nearby residents, and has even had them roll into his swimming pool but that’s to be expected.
He said it will become more of an issue if the development is approved, and took aim at the first-hole plan.
“For some of us, that pond steals a lot of our balls,” he said, suggesting golfers would slink into the home’s yard to retrieve stray shots instead of fishing them out of the water hazard.
There are also the esthetics, he said.
“For a golf course, having a pond is part of golf… as well as the drainage necessary,” he said. “That just doesn’t seem fair,” said Brousseau.
Pfrimmer declined to answer any questions from the Free Press. He recently sent a letter to residents surrounding the golf course.
“We feel that the proposed lots would complement the surrounding area, and would alleviate areas which we currently maintain but do not bring any value to the course itself,” he said.
The golf course and and about 70 homes were developed in tandem in the mid-1980s. The course opened in 1987.
Brousseau was there then and says the architect took into account the maximum number of houses the course — then a nine-hole track — could accommodate.
“He’s a golf course architect. He’s dealing with ball flight, he’s dealing with prevailing winds, he has to understand where that ball is going to go, then he puts in as many housing lots as possible,” Brousseau said.
While spaces targeted for Pfrimmer’s development are not on the fairways, they are in places where less-skilled golfers sometimes put their balls, he said.
The course was sold to local businesswoman Christie Houston in 2016 for $3.2 million. Houston also oversaw about $1 million in clubhouse renovations. She did not return phone messages Friday.
Houston has applied to rezone the golf course properties from “public open space” to “residential suburban.”
However, there is a question of whether the property is the golf course’s to sell. It is zoned as parkland and may belong to the community. Council is seeking a legal ruling on the matter, Reeve Brad Erb said.
The council heard from opponents at its Feb. 12 meeting. A submission by Gerald and Tracey Gluska said fencing and netting will become widespread to protect against golf-ball damage. Another common complaint is the lots will be much smaller than the ones with existing homes.
Council reserved decision until it obtains clarity on the legal question and engineering and land use matters, Erb said. The subject may be debated again at its meeting Tuesday if a legal opinion comes before then, he said.
Erb said Pfrimmer has followed all rules as a councillor and recused himself from any council deliberations involving the properties.
“This isn’t unique, particularly in rural municipalities,” he said.
The reeve acknowledged there is not a shortage of space for housing in his municipality.
Meanwhile, Brousseau said if Houston is trying to sell the properties because it is in financial difficulty, as people have suggested, it should shorten some of its holes and build a condominium.
He has heard estimates the property may be worth close to $8 million if developed for housing.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca