OWNER RIPS UP GOLF COURSE WITHOUT PERMIT
City steps in after more than 40 mature spruce trees pulled up for redevelopment
In a move that’s much like closing the proverbial barn door after all the barnyard animals have escaped and then been run over by a transport truck, the City of Calgary’s bylaw office shut down the stripping and grading of the Hamptons Golf Course Thursday following questions by the Herald.
Since late September, Windmill Golf Group — which bought the championship golf course in 2013 — has tore up more than 40 mature spruce trees at holes seven and eight in the upscale northwest community that is home to families of deer and migrating birds.
Paul Donker, Calgary’s co-ordinator for community planning, said a development inspector visited the site to investigate and shut down the work site Thursday.
“It was determined that a permit for changes to the site is required, since it is larger than 1,000 metres square,” Donker said in a written statement. “The owners have been informed and notified to stop work and make an application.”
Community residents are outraged that the Windmill Golf Group would go ahead and tear up the land without a development permit.
“This is a lot too little and a lot too late,” said an outraged Gina Church, whose house backs onto the pond at the seventh hole of the golf course.
“Us regular citizens have to get a permit if we want to make the slightest modification or addition to our backyard deck or renovate our basement, but (the owner) started tearing up a huge area of sensitive wildlife reserves and pulling out trees since late September and the city didn’t do anything until the media called,” she said.
Robert Church, a former professor at the University of Calgary’s medical school (which he helped found), said ripped up ground near the water’s edge is proof the golf course owner is contravening the Water Conservation Act.
“Now the damage has been done,” Church said.
“It’s extremely upsetting and disappointing. This used to be called Deer Coulee and we used to ride our horses around here when we were kids,” the 80-yearold added.
Donker said he doesn’t know if any fines will be levied against Windmill Golf Group.
It would be outrageous if the company isn’t fined. After all, Donker admitted they “got approval for a development permit for stripping and grading from the administration, however, it was appealed, the appeal was launched and the application was withdrawn.”
In other words, Windmill Golf Group went ahead with the redevelopment of the land even though it knew it withdrew its application.
“In speaking with our development inspection team, the City always seeks compliance as a first approach to provide the owners an opportunity to correct the situation; in this case, they will have to apply for the proper permit,” Donker said.
Looks like kid-glove treatment, doesn’t it? Us little guys who can’t afford to own a golf course should keep this sentence in mind if we’re ever fined for not shovelling our walk fast enough or if a pet escapes and is captured by the city or if we “forget” to apply for a development permit when we rebuild the deck. We can reply, “Doesn’t the city always seek compliance as a first approach to provide the owners an opportunity to correct the situation?”
When asked for an interview, the Windmill Golf Group responded by email, telling the Herald to contact its contracted developer, Quantum Place Developments.
But Chris Ollenberger, the managing principal at Quantum, says his company is not doing the work on the golf course.
“Windmill’s owner is away so I think that’s why you were asked to call me, but Quantum isn’t doing the golf course work. We’re doing the housing development, so I haven’t even been down to that site and I really don’t know what’s going on there,” Ollenberger said.
City Hall has received more than 3,000 letters of complaint by residents and others who object to the city rezoning recreational property to build a 64-unit housing development on the course’s existing 14th and 15th holes. That will result in the golf course needing to be rejigged to replace those two holes on the remaining footprint.
Under Calgary’s Land Use Bylaw, there is the ability to strip and grade land as long as it’s under 1,000 square metres. If it’s larger than that, a development permit is needed.
Hamptons Golf Course is the fourth golf course the city has allowed to be rezoned from recreational land to residential: Shawnee Slopes, Highland Park and Harvest Hills have all been wiped out to put in housing.
“This is very short-sighted of the city,” complained Gina Church.
Church noted the residents of the Hamptons all got together and spent $45,000 on legal fees, putting in an offer to buy the golf course and turn it into a park, but the land’s owner turned down the offer.
As for City Hall, it’s clear someone hasn’t been doing his job properly. It shouldn’t require a call from a newspaper to get action on the tearing up of land without a permit.