Source: The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.)
A second Charleston-area golf course is being eyed for possible development into homes, another sign that the area is oversaturated with links.
Portrait Homes has offered to buy the struggling Eagle Landing course, a 61-acre layout off Rivers Avenue, to convert into townhouses and single-family houses.
This comes as residents in King's Grant have started a petition drive aimed at preventing the 177-acre course off Dorchester Road from being converted into a possible 350-home community along the Ashley River.
Jerry Spearman, co-owner of Eagle Landing Golf Club Inc., said his company wants to sell after losing money for more than a decade. The plan, contingent on getting rezoning for residential use, calls for about 70 townhouse units and about 100 single-family houses.
Under the plan, the company would give about a third of the land would give about a third of the land to current homeowners. Fairways would be added to their property, more than doubling the size of some back yards, Portrait Homes Division Manager Ron Schulz said.
It was unclear whether the neighborhood's 200 or so homeowners could halt the deal, but some residents oppose additional housing or rezoning, including Hanahan City Administrator Dennis Pieper.
It is a similar story along Dorchester Road, where residents mobilized this weekend, taking petitions door to door to try to drum up opposition to converting King's Grant golf course into a residential community. Residents have expressed fears of increased traffic, a decrease in property values and possible annexation into the city of North Charleston.
Any change first would require approval from a majority of the roughly 400 property owners to amend the community's covenants that were put in place three decades ago when the course was built.
A lawsuit filed in September by the neighborhood's board of directors alleges that some of the course's financial woes come from bad management, including the closing of the swimming pool and tennis courts.
"People like living in a golf course community," said William Greenleaf, who moved into King's Grant with his family two years ago. "They don't want another 350-home development next to them. It won't bring my property values up."
Course owners John Meeks and Jesse Dove still hope to convince a majority of the residents that the residential community would be a better neighbor than a closed golf course. At a meeting at the clubhouse Monday night, owners said unless this plan happens, chances are the existing course will be closed by spring. "It's not a game to us," Meeks told about two dozen people. "It's very serious."
Meeks' plan calls for about 40-45 homes fronting the Ashley River. The plan also calls for a 10-acre riverfront park with about two miles of walking trails that will join a new pool and tennis courts. Home prices, though tentative, are expected to range from $200,000 to $800,000.
The financial struggles of these two courses come on the heels of a recent study by North Charleston city officials that calls for taxpayers to keep subsidizing the Golf Club at Wescott Plantation to the tune of $1.5 million a year for another three to five years.
The golf industry has been reeling for some time. Experts point to a flattening in the number of new players coupled with too many courses having been built during the boom.
