Are you feeling blue about the lack of greens in Richland? Golf greens, that is. Well, buck up, duffer! Though the outlook for construction is dark gray, even for those of us with the rosiest of glasses, the course-that-isn't may keep our finances in the black, and keep taxpayers from seeing red.
You might remember that, months ago, one of our supervisors presented an ill-fated plan for Richland to build a municipal golf course. He claimed that we could attract world-class competition, and put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the township coffers.
It turned out that the concept had a few flaws. Lack of land. Lack of money. Lack of support. But that supervisor didn't let those details get him down. On the Web site where his wife is Webmaster, she mentions that "Mike Z. is still working on the Municipal Golf Course idea. Every person he's spoken to loves it!"
I don't know who he has spoken to, but it certainly isn't the Pennsylvania Golf Course Owners Association. That organization is suing the town of Coatesville. Why? Because the City Council plans to build a recreation center and municipal golf course.
Coatesville is already in the deep rough. After 5 years of planning, the city has spent $5 million. They still don't own the land. And add $1 million so far in legal fees, with that number now set to take off like a Tiger Woods drive.
The golf course owners contend that Coatesville (and any other municipality) can not engage in any activity that competes with private enterprise, unless that activity is expressly authorized by the state. Is owning a golf course a proper function of government? The Chester County Courthouse will be the first stop on a tour that may end up in someone's Supreme Court, years from now.
In the meantime, governments beware. Leaders who leap onto the links before the last legal word do so at great risk. If the owners win, towns will be banned from building the bunkers, denied the design of doglegs, and forbidden to fashion the fairways. This is particularly bad news for East Rockhill, which just got the green light from DEP to grow their greens after a three-month delay while their 140-acre site was studied for endangered plants. They already have committed $4 million to their project, which still needs more permits, and is at least two years from completion.
These problems are not exactly comforting for proponents of Z's Tees. Attention, all of those people he's spoken to who "love it"! Maybe you just didn't know about the issues in Coatesville, or East Rockhill.
Or maybe you don't read The New York Times, where Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr. of Bayonne, New Jersey, "concluded that it would be economic suicide for Bayonne to get into the golf course business".
Or maybe you don't visit Atlantic County, NJ, to play the Blue Heron Pines East course. Better hurry. After only four years it is losing money, and will be converted into an age-restricted community.
Or maybe you didn't see the Annual Report from Evesham, NJ, where their thirty-year old municipal course lost $900,000 in 2003, forcing the township to take $750,000 from its open space fund to make the required bond payment. Rounds played had dropped 35 percent.
And that statistic is not an aberration. According to the National Golf Foundation, the total number of rounds played in the U.S. dropped from 518 million in 2000 to 495 million in 2003.
With golf in decline, is there a need for another course in Richland, even if Z can find the land, the money, and the support?
The website 1stop4golf.com lists 97 courses in its "Lehigh Valley and Poconos" section, and 106 more in "Philadelphia and Delaware Valley". Philadelphiagolfer.com shows 32 within an hour of us, and that is only looking to the north and west. Pagolfer.com has 12 more.
Most of these are public, some are private. But all are in competition for one thing - a shrinking pool of greens fees.
So what happens when a golf course loses money? Lets assume that Z is able to find his land, find his financing, and find the support of enough allies to build the course they "all love". It will take years of hard work. Will they be so quick to bail out if the greens are awash in red ink? Or will they tell us that we need to hang on, things will get better? We will make up the deficit with a tax increase. Or, like Evesham, a big chunk of the open space fund.
And consider the worst-case scenario: Z's Tees goes out of business. Like Blue Heron Pines, it can be sold. And who buys large tracts? Developers, for housing subdivisions or a shopping mall. Just what we need.
But what if the selling price doesn't cover the township's bond payments? Taxpayers will be reaching for the green in their wallets.
Golf courses are expensive to build, and expensive to operate. They are capable of huge losses, even after years of success. Like Evesham. It is not the function of government to risk taxpayer money on chancy investments, and the unfortunate fact is that steadily declining golf interest, and a glut of courses, make this idea iffier than a 50-foot breaking-downhill-to-the left putt.
Z's Tees was a hole-in-one longshot at best, even before the Coatesville lawsuit. But no matter how the courts eventually rule on what a municipality may do, building a golf course today is not something that we should do. No matter who says they "love it".
Tennis, anyone?