Date: Fri 09-Feb-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

conservation-golf-course

Full Text:

Wetlands Hearing Set On Golf Course Proposal

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

The Conservation Commission, acting as the town's Inland Wetlands and

Watercourses Commission, has scheduled a public hearing for February 14 on a

proposal to build an 18-hole golf course in Botsford.

The hearing is scheduled for 8 pm in Town Hall South.

The commission will hear a request from Peter Belmont, Inc, to conduct

regulated construction actvities on property located at 2-18 Button Shop Road

in connection with construction of an 18-hole golf course there. Members of

the public will have an opportunity to comment.

On January 4, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved a set of

zoning amendments that would allow a commercial golf course and golf driving

range in Botsford.

Professional golfer Peter Belmont, proprietor of Belmont's Ridgefield Golf

Range, requested the zoning rule amendements as a means to let him eventually

apply for P&Z approval for an 18-hole, par 3 "excutive course."

Besides the Conservation Commission and the P&Z, the state Department of

Environmental Protection (DEP) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) are

expected to review construction plans for the project.

Mr Belmont is seeking Conservation Commission approval to allow him to fill in

almost seven acres of ponds on the 120-acre site, which contains about 28

acres of ponds. Mr Belmont is seeking permission to put clean fill in three

ponds.

Some existing ponds would be retained as golf course design elements.

Mr Belmont has been in negotiations to buy acreage for a golf course at the

D'Addario Sand and Stone Company, Inc, a sand and gravel mine to the east of

South Main Street. The property lies in the area bounded by South Main Street,

Button Shop Road, Botsford Hill Road, and Meadowbrook Lane. Landscaping work

would convert the strip mining area into a golf course and driving range.

Attorney Henry Moy, reprsenting Mr Belmont, has said the golf pro hopes to

bring natural beauty to an area which has been surfaced-mined.

Residents who spoke on the golf course proposal at the January 4 P&Z session

generally had favorable comments about the project, but voiced some

reservations about it. These questions focused on: the effect that golf course

construction would have on the area's underground water supply; the effect of

that nighttime illumination for a driving range would have on nearby

properties; the kind of earth materials that would be used to fill in ponds on

the site; whether existing material in the ponds on the site would removed or

left in place; the golf facility's operating hours; and the negative effects,

if any, that the use of herbicides and pesticides on a golf course would have

on nearby properties.

The zoning rule amendments approved by the P&Z January 4 create regulatory

mechanisms through which an applicant can seek a formal approval for a golf

course as a special exception to the zoning regulations in an M-6 Industrial

zone.

The town now has two private golf courses - The Newtown Country Club on South

Main Street and The Rock Ridge Country Club on Dodgingtown Road.

Mr Belmont has said the facility he envisions could be built in two or three

years and would include a 5,000-square-foot golf pro shop. Holes on the course

would generally range from 135 yards to 250 yards long, with water in play on

many of the links. The proposed golf course project would cost more than $5

million, according to Mr Belmont.