Golf Course Redevelopment

[393b40]

Nope. If you look back at the conversation it was about public courses - those already belong to the people, comrade.

Public courses are usually privately owned. It's also entirely not clear the first conversation was only about municipal or state owned public courses because there's quite a few screenshots of privately owned public courses (Granite Links) and private courses (like for fucks sake one is The Country Club, and another is Oakley Country Club, I spied Charles River Country Club too) in the thread. There's very few true municipal courses in the area.

But yea let's rip them out and make them parks! Make it so golf is even more of a sport only played by the rich elite assholes you resent so much.

 

[Equilibria]

Public courses are usually privately owned. It's also entirely not clear the first conversation was only about municipal or state owned public courses because there's quite a few screenshots of privately owned public courses (Presidents GC, Granite Links) and private courses (like for fucks sake one is The Country Club, and another is Oakley Country Club) in the thread. There's very few true municipal courses in the area.

But yea let's rip them out and make them parks! Make it so golf is even more of a sport only played by the rich elite assholes you resent so much.

As I noted, I grew up next to a public course owned by the Commonwealth. Newton has another owned by the City. Brookline has one owned by the town that's twice the size of Larz Anderson Park. Boston has one owned by the city that takes up a full 60% of Franklin Park.

I have no problem making golf more exclusive if it's a tradeoff for those parks being just normal parks that everyone can use. It's not a sustainable pastime - why should we lean more into it?

Just to visualize this more zoomed out: here's one slice of the Boston area with land reserved for golf shown in orange:

 

[kmp1284]

My whole point of this thread wasnt that golf sux and all the golf courses should be taken away and redeveloped. It was just that maybe we dont need 37 golf courses within 12 miles of downtown and instead could make do with just like 25 instead.. or even just one less would be a huge amount of land put to better use imo. Its just a terribly wasteful use of land in the metro area of a city to have soooo many courses. I dont think thats a completely unreasonable perspective, but what do I know.

Let the market sort that out. Maybe some day a club will fail and present an opportunity for another use but I wouldn’t count on it happening any time soon. The public and muni courses are playing close to capacity most of the season and virtually all of the private clubs have full memberships, lengthy waiting lists of people eager and able to pay in some cases six-figure initiation fees and have cash reserves to handle yearslong downturns in revenue.

 

[393b40]

I have no problem making golf more exclusive if it's a tradeoff for those parks being just normal parks that everyone can use. It's not a sustainable pastime - why should we lean more into it?

You need to answer the question of why you think your particular brand of parkland utilization is any more important and valuable than as designated-use parkland (which IMO, that's pretty much what a golf course is - no different than a baseball diamond or soccer field complex). These places are packed usually from sun up to sundown so they're being utilized and it provides good recreation for people, as well as physical activity options for people who really don't have a ton as they get older (there's a reason you see a lot of older people playing golf, it's because they can't shoot hoops anymore).

It's not a sustainable pastime - why should we lean more into it?

Oh goody. Here comes the climate change hammer. Yea the golf courses of MA are not the problem here. I might agree if you said golf course in Phoenix were stupid tho.

 

[Equilibria]

These places are packed usually from sun up to sundown so they're being utilized and it provides good recreation for people

A busy golf course:

A busy soccer field:

"Packed" is a relative term.

Oh goody. Here comes the climate change hammer. Yea the golf courses of MA are not the problem here. I might agree if you said golf course in Phoenix were stupid tho.

Not what I meant by "sustainable". I meant sustainable use of space. But yes, golf also sucks for the environment (particularly in the desert but also here, where they use a ton of pesticides that runoff into nearby waterways). Thanks for bringing that up.

 

[393b40]

A busy soccer field:

Apples and oranges. Soccer fields have burst peak times (Saturday mornings, a few hours after school). They're largely empty and unused the rest of the time. The Danehy Park fields in Cambridge are a good example of this

 

[Equilibria]

Apples and oranges. Soccer fields have burst peak times (Saturday mornings, a few hours after school). They're largely empty and unused the rest of the time. The Danehy Park fields in Cambridge are a good example of this

And golf courses are used 24/7? Come on. And they're largely empty when they are being used.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

You can literally make the same argument about land preserves, forests, and large parks. It's a strawman argument that just ends up sounding classist. Fight against capped FAR limits next to transit stations, not this.

 

[Equilibria]

Fight against capped FAR limits next to transit stations, not this.

I am. Here's the land use situation around Woodland Station. FAR limit: zero.

Also, you keep saying "classist" as if (a) I automatically become that if you accuse me of it enough times and (b) there's anything wrong with not liking it when the rich hog resources.

I get that you all like golf. I knew I'd hit a nerve when I made the first post. It's still a conversation we need to have, because as this thread began with: we have way too many golf courses in Metro Boston.

 

[393b40]

because as this thread began with: we have way too many golf courses in Metro Boston.

You're trying to pass off an opinion as a fact and based on your position any number of golf courses greater than zero seems untenable. You need to backup this claim with some kind of data explaining why "We have too many golf courses" otherwise it's just an emotion driven argument based on your biased view that golf is a game for elite rich assholes.

 

[Equilibria]

You're trying to pass off an opinion as a fact and based on your position any number of golf courses greater than zero seems untenable. You need to backup this claim with some kind of data explaining why "We have too many golf courses" otherwise it's just an emotion driven argument based on your biased view that golf is a game for elite rich assholes.

It is very clearly my opinion and nothing else. You are free to disagree with it and present your evidence. My evidence is the map presented above. I respectfully submit that an area about the size of Cambridge (admittedly an estimate) in that slice alone is indeed "too many".

 

[BeyondRevenue]

Private golf courses... Tax them. Tax them hard, Fine them big and hard for dumping bulk phosphorus and pesticides into our local waterways (The Charles especially). Golf is water pollution. Bill them for the copious amount of water they take and return as poison. Restore the wetlands they bastardized for 'living' astroturf. Yeah, and turn the clubhouses into community centers. The rest can be optimized for much needed natural carbon re-capture.
Golf needs to go away. It's really backward in a lot of ways. It just is. It's the perfect exhibit of how tone-deaf one powerful slice of the population can be in the face of vast contrary public perception, known science, and their place in society. It is the worst example of an outward air of entitlement.
Sorry, but golfers can find another less destructive hobby. As a group they're a universal comically justified stereotype: very thin-skinned, short tempered and aren't used to hearing no or even being questioned, so they will likely get all snowflakey and act all victimish. It's really sad.
I have often compared golfers to heroin addicts. Both selfishly sacrifice everything -- friends, family, time and lots of money in the destructive pursuit of a temporary high. They both have specialized "gear" that helps them 'do it' better and they don't want anyone to touch their stuff. They don't seem able to stop the madness. They both start hanging with a bad crowd. They all end up debased and helpless at the feet of the master they created.
I never started because I didn't want to be like them. Really. I think their passion for walking with a stick and small balls is scary and depressing.
And yes. For everything they are, in abusive land use, pollution belching, class-ire stoking braggadocio, and as enclave of exclusive entitlement, there are way too many golf courses... for this moment in history and for the foreseeable future.

 

[themissinglink]

Although these examples are not in Metro Boston, I can think of two recent instances where a housing development replaced a golf course in Massachusetts. In Millis, Glen Ellen Country Club was replaced by a 324-unit housing development called Regency at Glen Ellen. In Bellingham, Bungay Brook Golf Club is currently being replaced by a 110-unit housing development.

Developments like these which replace golf courses are being undertaken because of a dire need for new housing, not because of some vendetta against golfers.

Regency at Glen Ellen:

Bungay Brook Estates:

 

[393b40]

It is very clearly my opinion and nothing else. You are free to disagree with it and present your evidence. My evidence is the map presented above. I respectfully submit that an area about the size of Cambridge (admittedly an estimate) in that slice alone is indeed "too many".

You're the one who came in here trying to destabilize the status quo which most people are seemingly quite happy with since this doesn't seem to be a major issue people are hammering on except for fringe left folks. The onus is on you to come up with the data to backup your lofty claim that there is "too many golf courses".

Further you map of "orange" continues to include a number of private and exclusive golf clubs.

1. Charles River Park.
2. Woodland
3. Brae Burn.
4. Pine Brook.
5. Weston Golf Club
6. Wellesly Country Club
7. The Country Club

In fact MOST OF YOUR MAP is PRIVATELY OWNED LAND.

Edit: Forgot The Country Club.

 

[stick n move]

I am. Here's the land use situation around Woodland Station. FAR limit: zero.

Also, you keep saying "classist" as if (a) I automatically become that if you accuse me of it enough times and (b) there's anything wrong with not liking it when the rich hog resources.

I get that you all like golf. I knew I'd hit a nerve when I made the first post. It's still a conversation we need to have, because as this thread began with: we have way too many golf courses in Metro Boston.

View attachment 36711

That is atrocious land use next to a green line station.

 

[themissinglink]

In fact MOST OF YOUR MAP is PRIVATELY OWNED LAND.

Are we not supposed to discuss the hypothetical redevelopment of privately owned land? There is an entire thread where people discuss which privately owned parcels are potential candidates for redevelopment. Why should golf courses be off-limits in a discussion about what's left to build on?

 

[393b40]

Are we not supposed to discuss the hypothetical redevelopment of privately owned land? There is an entire thread where people discuss which privately owned parcels are potential candidates for redevelopment. Why should golf courses be off-limits in a discussion about what's left to build on?

It's different. Equilibria wants government-led land taking so it can all be glorious parkland for The People. If private developers want to try buying up The Country Club to build some shitty condos, good luck to them - but it isn't happening. Most of these private golf courses are sitting on tens of millions of dollars of land value. The development would need to be significant to make any kind of movement and considering where they are located those towns are not going to approve that kind of density and construction to make it viable.

 

[mass88]

I think a more pressing issue would be to get a town like Sharon to build more. It's close to Boston. 95 runs through part of it. Has a commuter rail stop. Yet their commuter rail station is surrounded by woods (I understand some of if is wetlands). Look at a town that's a bit farther out in Franklin. They have multiple larger scale developments within walking distance of their 2 commuter rail stations and have a population density that is more than double that of Sharon. I'd hazard a guess that a golf course like Ponkapoag engages the general public a whole lot better than the large swatch of woods that is the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary.

Then again, a wise man once said "country clubs and cemeteries are the biggest waste of prime real estate". Look at the space cemeteries take up in Boston alone.

 

[Suffolk 83]

Private golf courses... Tax them. Tax them hard, Fine them big and hard for dumping bulk phosphorus and pesticides into our local waterways (The Charles especially). Golf is water pollution. Bill them for the copious amount of water they take and return as poison. Restore the wetlands they bastardized for 'living' astroturf. Yeah, and turn the clubhouses into community centers. The rest can be optimized for much needed natural carbon re-capture.
Golf needs to go away. It's really backward in a lot of ways. It just is. It's the perfect exhibit of how tone-deaf one powerful slice of the population can be in the face of vast contrary public perception, known science, and their place in society. It is the worst example of an outward air of entitlement.
Sorry, but golfers can find another less destructive hobby. As a group they're a universal comically justified stereotype: very thin-skinned, short tempered and aren't used to hearing no or even being questioned, so they will likely get all snowflakey and act all victimish. It's really sad.
I have often compared golfers to heroin addicts. Both selfishly sacrifice everything -- friends, family, time and lots of money in the destructive pursuit of a temporary high. They both have specialized "gear" that helps them 'do it' better and they don't want anyone to touch their stuff. They don't seem able to stop the madness. They both start hanging with a bad crowd. They all end up debased and helpless at the feet of the master they created.
I never started because I didn't want to be like them. Really. I think their passion for walking with a stick and small balls is scary and depressing.
And yes. For everything they are, in abusive land use, pollution belching, class-ire stoking braggadocio, and as enclave of exclusive entitlement, there are way too many golf courses... for this moment in history and for the foreseeable future.

Who hurt you?

 

[Suffolk 83]

Are we not supposed to discuss the hypothetical redevelopment of privately owned land? There is an entire thread where people discuss which privately owned parcels are potential candidates for redevelopment. Why should golf courses be off-limits in a discussion about what's left to build on?

There seems to be some serious group think among extreme liberals about golf courses that's sprouted up in the last few years and honestly it's offensive to me as a fellow liberal. Talking points like this one and few others make the left sound crazy and anti fun and ultimately hurts the cause. Like someone else said, are you going to argue against cemeteries next? Should we go thru all of the local town, state and national parks that are rarely used? There's a ton of them