Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)
With discussion continuing late into the evening, the City Council on Tuesday was expected to approve yet another increase in the budget for the city's first municipal golf course, bringing total costs to more than $40 million.
The new increase to the Callippe Preserve Golf Course and Open Space Project's budget -- it's third in a year -- adds $2.3 million for additional construction costs and brings its total to $40.8 million.
This is the latest of several golf course budget increases since the Happy Valley project was approved in September 2002.
In 1999, the city estimated the course could be built for $21 million. By the time the council initially approved it in 2001, the project's budget had ballooned to $34 million. In 2004, the council approved two additional increases, adding $4.5 million to the budget.
To cover the latest increase, the city is expected to take money from both its capital reserve fund and interest accrued from another fund.
Aside from money issues, building the course has been no hole-in-one for the city, either. It's opening already has been delayed twice from a fall 2004 target date. Forsgren Associates, a subcontractor responsible for the majority of the golf course construction, recently pulled out of the project, claiming to have not been fully paid for its work.
Rob Wilson, the city's head of public works, said his understanding is that Forsgren left because it felt it is owed money by the project's main contractor, Ferma Corp. of Mountain View.
Nonetheless, Wilson said the course is set to open late in the fall.
Also Tuesday, the council was expected to receive an informational report on proposed amendments to the Happy Valley specific plan. The plan outlines what development can take place in the Happy Valley area.
Greenbriar Homes is applying for the amendments to the plan. Greenbriar, which holds a development option on the land east of Alisal Street on what is called the "Spotorno flat," wants to develop a 79-unit single-family residential project there. The proposed changes to the area's specific plan would help pave the way for that project to move ahead.
However, the city first will prepare a supplemental environmental impact report and a final supplemental study to determine whether the changes are environmentally safe. One of the proposed amendments requested is to shift the much-debated and expensive Happy Valley bypass road from the eastern portion of the 158-acre site to the western side of the property.
