What is the latest news on the Calusa golf course? (Miami: for sale, power lines)

[nesssag]

^that

[tallrick]

The fact is that the more development that is built the lower quality of life for existing residents and the higher property taxes. progress lies in less development, not more. Overcrowded Kendall does not need yet more development to clog the roads even more. Hopefully residents will get mad enough to take action, legal or not to stop development long enough for the economy to collapse again.

[pslhomie]

Wow Miami does not need more tax revenue? Stop wasteful spending? The way you stop wasteful spending is to have more tax revenue. More tax revenue means less people are taking and providing stability to the community. The more people that have jobs (yes golf courses actually employ people) the better the community is and the lower the tax rates will be. Building houses provides only limited tax revenue. The only way to get more out of them is to raise the taxes. Jobs not only provide a tax base that self raises taxes by employees giving salary increases but also insures that people are paying property taxes. Green spaces only provide a job for the person who mows the grass. Golf courses attract people from out of town (go ask Broward how their golf courses are doing) No one wants to come to Miami to visit a green space unless they are selling drugs or creating other forms of crime. Yes we need parks and I get that. Calusa should be a golf course and not a park. The roads can't support the kind of development that is planned. Making it a park does not make any kind of sense no matter how you spin it.

[pslhomie]

Another thing. Ask the City of Miami how their parks are doing. They have several that they are having to redo because of environmental disasters. Can you imagine how long it would take to make Calusa a park? Can you imagine the cost? My guess is that it would take a decade and well over 20 million. That is a lot of tax revenue. The parks in the city of Miami have been closed for a year with no finish line in sight. Some of these parks are tiny.

[straight shooter]

I will post it again.

Originally Posted by straight shooter

P.S. I am not pushing for golf courses to be converted into other forms of green spaces but if they are no longer going to be golf courses then I much rather see them turned into other green space uses then see them get developed. In the case of Calusa it should remain a golf course because that is what the covenant specifically specifies and a park or other form of green space as a last alternative. Development whether single family, multi-family, or commercial should not even be considered much less accepted.

[nesssag]

And I will once again post... ^That

[Fl1150]

The problem with too many golf courses is that they actually lower property values if not maintained properly and can be complete waste of space. They provide a petty number of jobs and I rather they rebuild over it and turn into something else. Home,parks, commercial industries all provide needed tax revenue from the county no matter how many different times you try to justify not developing it. Second this is South Florida not North Florida so the growth and development is going to be dense, fast and much more money is going to be spent keeping up with demand.

[Awsi Dooger]

Originally Posted by blueherons

Again, it is a very expensive, lengthy undertaking. That course is probably one of the very few in the country that opened back up. It is the exception, the rare exception.

It's laughable to claim the Killian Greens example is not relevant. It's only the closest course to the Calusa property. Every variable in place at Killian Greens, like the types of grass, is similar at Calusa, other than Killian Greens zigs and zags through numerous sections while Calusa is basically one swatch of land. The nearby residents actually traipsed across the closed Killian Greens property exponentially more than at Calusa. I guarantee the accumulated third party debris at Killian Greens was many times that of Calusa, which is fenced in while Killian Greens was wide open for the most part.

This is not some northern property with hills and contours that change shape and have to be remanicured at awkward angles. It's a flat chunk of South Florida land with a few lakes. Nothing strenuous at all. Anybody can tout fear. That's quite popular these days, in fact. Take it somewhere else.

It's not even the only local example. The old Kendale Lakes West executive course down the street on Kendale Drive from Calusa also closed for many years before reopening as a 9 hole course in the mid '90s. That was the precedent cited by the Bacardi slimeballs. That course eventually closed again before the shorter covenant was broken in court. We discussed that earlier in this thread.

So far, the impossible task of re-opening a long-closed golf course is batting 0-2 within a few miles of Calusa.

[Awsi Dooger]

Originally Posted by pslhomie

Well, lets see the only golf courses left south of the airport are Killian Greens, Palmetto and Miccossucki (or how ever you spell it) Not sure you can count Briar bay. So exactly which golf courses would you turn into green spaces? What Miami needs is tax revenue. Golf courses provide tax revenue. Green spaces sap tax revenue.

Exactly right. At one point there were many more than that. I can think of Calusa, Colonial Palms on South Dixie Highway, the short-lived Hidden Valley on Miller Road, Kendall Country Club on roughly 102nd Avenue, and the Kendale Lakes Executive Course that I mentioned in my previous post.

Other than Calusa, those were executive courses, par 60 tracks. Now only Briar Bay survives among that type of course in the south end.

The wisdom of a covenant is it doesn't overreact. I emphasized that earlier in the thread. I lived in Las Vegas for 25 years. The dumbest bettors are the ones who fixate on last week's results. If that's all they know, they don't know anything. And it's essentially where we are in regard to articles like the recent ones in the Daily Business Review discussing the Calusa ruling:

http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/i...20141026002305

Golf is currently down. No kidding. It can't recover if you eliminate all the venues and cement them in. This isn't as simple as building a new bowling alley if that sport regains popularity. The one comment under that article correctly points out that the author provided the stat of Calusa losing money for 6 years without supplying the supporting details, like Bacardi tearing down the clubhouse, using a trailer and then outhouses for restrooms, and allowing the greens to become an unplayable joke. I think I likened it to selling rum in paper cups lined with mud. Check how your sales fare once that's the established trend. Bacardi systematically drove all the golfers away and then either purchased a verdict or found an ignorant gullible judge who ignored the big picture. The county is correct that it's a dangerous precedent. Unfortunately the original authors of the covenants apparently weren't specific and forceful enough in their language, unaware of the ruthless greedy attacks down the road.

That's not my comment under that article, BTW. The situation at Calusa became extremely well known. As others have posted, the elimination of the clubhouse was sketchy at best. My parents were playing Calusa several times per week at the time. I joined them when I visited from Miami. We drove onto the property after Katrina hit. Originally we were told the clubhouse suffered some water damage but would be back in business as soon as the course reopened in a few months. Then we heard about supposed tornado damage, even though it wasn't obvious and didn't make a heck of a lot of sense given no path of disturbed trees or other structures. This must have been a beamed down tornado, a Star Trek version that materialized and departed at the back of the clubhouse alone.

I probably have a decent picture of those greens somewhere, the condition they were allowed to reach in mid to late 2010. Words alone can't do it justice. There were savaged and when the grass tried to make a comeback ridges formed at the intersection of the new grass and remaining grass. There would be a 1 inch transition, like freeways labeled, "uneven lanes." Comical. This wasn't on one or two greens. All over the course. Just like we were fed a story about a phantom tornado the story was that the greenskeeper used the wrong chemical. Bacardi gently ruined the greens just like that article quotes the Bacardi lawyer claiming they "gently" dealt with uncooperative home owners. Where's the local columnist gutsy and competent enough to attack the absurdity?

[pslhomie]

I would think the residents who live on the street where the entrance to Calusa should have the most say. After all they are the ones who suffer the most with the traffic. It was bad enough that they had to deal with the constant flow of golfers (including myself) going down their street but at least it was limited. If you make it a park you are going to have hundreds more cars going down that street with crime going up, loud music and all of the other things that come with having a park of that size. Do you not think that someone will not want to have a large event there? Have you considered all of the things associated with a park?

The most economical decision anyone could make would be to return it to a golf course. Golf courses raise property values not lower them. Anyone who says otherwise does not know what they are talking about. One solution would be for the county and the residents to partner and invest in opening it back up. Through membership from the people who live in the community they could keep the value of the land up and may even make money. If they just break even they are better off because there will be no high rise buildings, cranes, dump trucks or all of the other things that come with development. They would be right where they are now.

It is unfortunate that this has come to this but someone has to draw a line in the sand. Golf courses also are considered "Green spaces" you know.