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CSH in the News >
Long Islander - Plans to Buy Country Club Fall Apart
Long Islander - Plans to Buy Country Club Fall Apart
Oct 5, 2006 -- HUNTINGTON
Plans To Buy Country Club Fall Apart
Neighbors worried about losing golf links
By David Winzelberg/ info@longislandernews.com
“It’s off.” With those words, a $90 million deal to buy the Cold Spring Country Club fell apart on Tuesday, and a vote on whether club members wanted to take the deal was cancelled.
Gary Melius, who already owns 22 acres of the Oheka Castle property next door, had revealed plans to build about 225 townhouse units surrounding the golf course, which would be maintained.
Melius said the club’s representatives “weren’t dealing in good faith”. A last minute agreement sent by the club for Melius to sign reportedly soured the deal. “I’m walking away,” he said.
Cold Spring manager Greg Smith said he could not comment on the matter.
Gayle Snyder, chairperson of the Cold Spring Hills Civic Association, said most of the Cold Spring homeowners want the club to stay. “But if they do sell, we would still like to see the golf course preserved,” said Snyder, who added that sewage problems and strain on the schools are big concerns if the course contains more housing.
After a six-month moratorium on development within the golf courses in the Town of Huntington was extended this summer, builders hoping to turn fairways into green have become impatient.
The Hakimian Organization, which has already purchased the former Hollow Hills Golf Course to build 30 homes on 1-acre lots, has sued the town. The builder claims that the property had ceased to be a golf course last September, months before the town ban.
Traffic on Ryder Avenue in Dix Hills was “mild” when the Hollow Hills course was open, according to Scott McAlpine, who has lived across the street from the nine-hole course for 15 years. But he fears that will change once proposed plans for a gated community on the site come to fruition.
Like Snyder, McAlpine and his wife Eileen want Hollow Hills to remain as a golf course. “It’s been a golf course for over 30 years,” McAlpine said. “I think it’s just a better use of the land.”
Beside added pressure on the schools, the McAlpines fear invisible dangers that could be stirred up if and when back hoes start to hum. “It hasn’t been tested fully,” said McAlpine, who added that the years of pesticides and other chemicals used to maintain the fairways might pose a hazard.
Town officials concede that neither property could be purchased for open space because of costs, estimated at $50 to $100 million for each course. But Councilman Stu Besen said the town was weighing its options in both cases.
“Our planning department is studying the issue and we should have some options in the next few weeks,” Besen said. Some of the possibilities include a new zoning classification to preserve the courses and permitting limited development, as long as the course is preserved.
The current moratorium runs out in February 2007.
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