The Walden Lake Community Association voted against taking a settlement proposal with Visions Golf at a community meeting Friday, June 3.
This means a Planning Board meeting to address the rezoning request in Walden Lake will continue as scheduled on Thursday, June 16.
Visions Golf, the owner of the Walden Lake Golf & Country Club, is seeking to rezone portion of its two 18-hole golf courses for residential development. The WLCA has taken an opposite stance.
Visions has been in talks with the WLCA since October 2015.
The June 3 proposal included:
— Transferring ownership of golf holes 4 to 8 of the Lakes course, as well as the four golf holes from Griffin Boulevard to Walden Lake Park, from Visions to the WLCA.
— Placement of a conservation easement on both transferred areas by Visions Golf.
— Administrative change reducing the maximum number of multi-family units in the proposed rezoning from 156 to 111.
— Construction of a new clubhouse, the largest room of which the WLCA would be able to use for monthly and annual meetings at no charge.
The settlement offer was a condition on the WLCA supporting Visions’ rezoning application.
But the board didn’t go for the offer. Prior to taking the vote, the WLCA had sought out quotes addressing the costs of maintenance for the transferrable property. For the golf holes from Griffin Boulevard to Walden Lake Park, the cost of maintenance would be $365,000 per year.
“It’d be a significant cost to maintain it,” WLCA President Dan Orrico said during the meeting. “With that, I move to reject the settlement agreement. I move as part of the motion that we offer a counterproposal to continue to negotiate.”
The board unanimously approved the vote.
One of the major reasons that the board rejected the proposal was because the WLCA would have to agree to a restrictive covenant that the association will not engage in the golf course operations in its own capacity or its designee on the property.
“For both courses, it would be about $700,000 per year that it would cost us to maintain it just to grow grass, and no (use) for it that we would have or that we could use it for,” Orrico said.
While Visions cited the proposal as “the most generous offer” it could make, Orrico called the proposal “a bad deal for the community.”
However, the WLCA remained open to the idea of negotiating with Visions.
“What I do know is that we won’t turn off the idea of negotiating,” Orrico said. “But in the end, it’ll be our members that decide. The board will be the ones doing the negotiation, of course, but the members will be the ones that finally decide.”
Harley Herman, the WLCA’s attorney, agreed.
“From our standpoint, the door is still open,” Herman said. “I’ve been pleased that we’ve been at least continuing the talk.”
Alice Huneycutt, the attorney for Visions Golf, said that the company also is open to continuing negotiations
“Maybe by next week we may be at a better place to have something more definitive,” Huneycutt said. “For now, the June 16 Planning Board meeting is going forward. We are also continuing to have an open door to have conversations with the association.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.