New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Yale’s proposal to restore 1926 golf course raises questions
NEW HAVEN — The proposed felling of more than 800 trees, the disturbance of wetlands on the Yale Golf Course and the construction of a temporary hauling road on the Yale Nature Preserve has brought objections from Westville residents as they seek a discussion with the university.
Yale, in its August 1,000-plus page water quality permit application to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, proposes restoring the 1926 golf course as close as possible to the original design created by Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor.
In addition to the clearing and thinning of trees, the proposal will permanently impact 253,240 square feet (5.6 acres) of wetlands and temporarily affect 138,600 square feet (2 acres) of wetlands, according to the application.
Amy Marx, who represented Alder Darryl Brackeen Jr., D-26, and other neighbors at the most recent New Haven Environmental Advisory Council meeting, said the residents are looking for “an open conversation about the pros and cons of these decisions by Yale.”
Karen King, a spokesperson for Yale, said the work at the golf course is part of the annual culling of trees which had been suspended for three years because of the pandemic.
“Most of the trees have been identified by an arborist as diseased and dying. The trees are located near public access areas and pose a potential risk of overhead limb failure to community members, golfers and staff,” King wrote in an email.
The report states that tree clearing is proposed to provide a line of sight for the players, fairway expansion, and aid in airflow to reduce moisture on the course.
Marx said what she and others found on the course were “big majestic, beautiful trees being cut that look entirely healthy.”
The goal of the project is to restore the course to how it was almost a century ago, which includes the tees, greens, bunkers and fairways, as well as an extension of the length of the course to accommodate championship play. Work will also be done on golf cart path realignment and the driving range.
Much of the application also covers extensive engineering tied to water conservation, including dredging ponds for improved water storage capacity and a new computer-controlled irrigation system.
Photos of the course show dozens of cut trees stacked like kindling at various locations with wood chips covering areas where stumps have been removed. “As time passes, we are in an interconnected world of global warming, and the question becomes, at what cost are we cutting down trees? The Nature Preserve and the golf course are not only a gorgeous natural preserve but also a massive carbon filtration and sink for global warming,” Marx said.
At the EAC meeting, Rob Schonberg asked what Peter Palacious Jr., the course’s general manager, meant when he commented on his plans for the course in the September 2020 issue of Golf Digest.
“Using old prints as a guide,” Palacious talked about his vision of restoration to the original design in the article.
“Raynor intended no trees to be in the confines of the course. Not only does clearing (those trees) out restore how Raynor wanted the course to play, it will improve the turf and conditioning practices, two complaints I know Yale has dealt with in the past,” Palacios was quoted as saying.
King did not answer a question on what the general manager meant.
Schonberger said he heard from Yale that it is not its intention to cull all the trees.
“They have not told me whether they are going to leave one ... or whether they are going to leave hundreds,” Schonberger said.
Laura Cahn, chairwoman of the New Haven Environmental Advisory Council, has asked New Haven Aldermanic President Tyisha Walker-Myers for a public meeting on Yale’s plans.
A review of the work is currently before DEEP and the US Army Corps of Engineers. After that, it goes to the City Plan Commission for site plan, soil erosion and sediment control permitting.
King reiterated that schedule, saying the university will begin discussions locally and seek the necessary approvals once the other two agencies have issued their findings.
The renovation is proposed to be phased in from October 2023 to August 2025, with the administrative approvals taking place this spring.
The golf course is on a 287acre parcel along the city’s western municipal boundary. It is densely surrounded to the north and east by residential properties and to the north and northwest by the Yale Nature Preserve and Route 15.
The southern end is bound by the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority’s Maltby Lakes facility. A small area extends into West Haven.
The restoration plan calls for the creation of a temporary hauling road off Fountain Street, north of the course, connecting to the 7th hole and then to the driving range.
After selectively clearing trees, this access road through the adjacent Yale Nature Preserve was described as crushed stone that would be 24 feet wide with filter fabric under 16-footwide timber mats within the wetland area. It will also feature sediment and erosion controls, according to the report.
Creation of a hauling road is planned so the university can “avoid residential neighborhoods and tight turns on narrow municipal roadways to the maximum extent possible,” the report reads.
The hauling road will run behind some 20 homes on Longhill Terrace, according to a map in the report.
King also addressed the creation of the road and its purpose to direct construction work away from local neighborhoods. She wrote, “once the project is complete, the haul route would be removed, and the area restored — with an eye toward enhancing community access from Fountain Street.”
In her letter to WalkerMyers, Cahn worried about increased water problems for the neighborhood.
“Among many potential consequences, we are concerned about the environmental impact on the neighborhood, which is already plagued by excess water eroding soil, flooding basements, opening sinkholes, creating new streams and running down streets during rainstorms,” she wrote.
She said the city has 1.7 million trees, 118 per person.
“We need all the shade, particulate matter filtering, oxygen yield, noise dampening, carbon storage and protection from erosion and storm-water runoff provided by each of these trees,” she said.
Cahn said mature trees sequester more carbon than new trees, so additional planting would not solve the problem.
According to the report, there will be a second hauling route from the 11th hole to Stevenson Road, temporarily disturbing 11,100 square feet within four wetland locations.
Of the 35 wetlands detailed in the report, only nine will not be disturbed.
The report does address flooding problems on Stevenson Road, noting that existing drainage issues have been identified where the golf course property discharges toward Stevenson Road, particularly “at a drainage swale between 271 and 285 Stevenson Road properties.”
It found that the city’s drainage network within the road is undersized, causing flooding issues on neighboring properties. The Tighe & Bond engineers propose installing a series of catch basins to discharge the water through a headwall, improving the capacity of the municipal storm sewer system.