Mercury News
March 22, 2006

Opposition kills Menlo Park golf course proposal

Knight Ridder

Developer Craig Price will no longer build a golf course and three playing fields at Bayfront Park, marking an end to one of the most divisive issues Menlo Park has tackled in recent memory.

Price, 50, told the Palo Alto Daily News on Tuesday that he withdrew his application at the start of this week because “life's too short.”

“That community up there is so divided,” said Price, founder of Buena Park-based Highlands Golf. “I don't see how they can get anything done. It's unbelievable. It's a shame.”

The proposal pitted sports enthusiasts against open space advocates for the five months it remained on the table.

Eight months ago, Price heard the city was looking for someone to build a golf course on a closed landfill so he called up the city and began to hash out plans.

In November, Council members Lee Duboc, Nicholas Jellins and Mickie Winkler supported negotiating with Highlands Golf while Council members Andrew Cohen and Kelly Fergusson opposed it.

Supporters said the project was a way to save city money while getting the three much-needed playing fields. It costs the city about $187,000 a year to maintain the parkland. The city was expected to receive up to $260,000 a year from the golf course.

Price said he couldn't satisfy the opposition, who wanted nothing less than preservation of the 160-acres of open space.

Opponents had a “selfish mindset,” Price said, adding that he never could understand what value they saw in “a brown, dirt knob.”

If the community was split “90 percent for it and 10 percent against,” then Price said he would have pursued it. But, “It's like 50-50,” he said.

Price said that during a Monday conference call with city officials, City Attorney Bill McClure told him his project would be “tied up in litigation for years.”

“I just said, That's crazy,” Price said.

The city wanted Price to foot the bill for any litigation, which he was told would cost him “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“There are better things to do in life than sit around and deal with just crazy people,” said Price, referring to the environmentalists who fought steadily to squash the deal and who were expected to sue to block the project.

Lennie Roberts, of Committee for Green Foothills, said Tuesday night that “the developer was smart. (The city) wanted him to take all the risks.”

Roberts said the 160 acres should remain open space to one day fit in with the restored surrounding landscape, part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refugee.

When told about the developer's decision, Heyward Robinson, a Parks and Recreation commissioner, said, “I think that the outcome was not unforeseeable so I think (the council majority) rushed into this. I think they forced the issue.”

Robinson said that the staff time and city resources “could have been more wisely used.”

Reached by the Daily News as he pulled into the driveway of his Southern California home Tuesday night, Price said, “It's disappointing. It could have been a great project. It should be a lot of fun with a lot of people happy about it. And if they're not, Oh well.”

Talks about developing Bayfront Park are not completely wrapped up. Following Tuesday's closed session, Mayor Jellins announced that the golf developer withdrew his application. Duboc then requested the council discuss putting playing fields at the park at a future meeting, a move supported by Winkler.

Page last updated September 13, 2010.