- November 17, 2024
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Palm Coast may invite county and state officials to join a discussion on what to do with the overgrown, jungle-like Matanzas Woods Golf Course.
“I think the time has come to be the convener of a discussion,” Mayor Jon Netts said at a City Council meeting April 21. “This cannot continue in perpetuity.”
Netts’ willingness to consider such a discussion was voiced after a public comment by Matanzas-area resident Mike Finnigan, who said conditions at the course include a lake that is “110% overgrown,” plus manmade nuisances like illegal dumping.
“All we’re asking is that City Council gets up there, takes a look at what’s going on, gets the place cleaned up — throw the mini-bikes out, throw the four-wheelers out, get the nonsense that goes on in the driving range cleaned up out of there, get the mattresses and the beds and everything that’s being dumped up there ... cleaned up,” Finnigan said. “Since 2005, nothing’s happened up there, and we need the city to take a hard look.”
The city’s options, Netts replied, have been limited by state law that bar city officials from entering the golf course, which remains private property.
“This has been a thorn in our side for years,” he said of the course. “There are private property rights that the city can’t impact. The property is owned. It will probably never be resurrected as a golf course, but you can’t require them to maintain the appearance of a golf course.”
The city does have “minimal standards” that still have to be maintained, City Manager Jim Landon said, but even those have been difficult to enforce because the property is going through foreclosure.
“Recently we’ve had trouble determining who owns the golf course because it’s been sold, and it’s going through the process of foreclosure,” he said. “At this point we have scheduled a code board case.”
But the city has been hampered by state laws that prohibit it from sending out code enforcement officials to inspect the property. “We’ve attempted to do the best we can. It’s a very difficult situation,” Landon said.
Councilwoman Heidi Shipley said there have been teens building bonfires on the course.
Councilman Steve Nobile asked what could be done about reports of illegal dumping.
City Attorney Bill Resichmann said that both of those were criminal matters that could be handled directly only by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, but that “if it gets to the point where there are health and safety issues … City Council can direct staff to go onto the property and remedy that portion of the problem that affects public safety.” The city could then impose a lien to cover the costs. If the lien went unpaid, the city could, eventually, foreclose on it.
Then it would own a costly-to-maintain and long-unmaintained golf course property.
But the lawyer handling the foreclosure assured Landon that it won’t get that far, and “that the people in foreclosure won’t let it go away, that they’ll make that payment before the final steps,” Landon said. They have a potential buyer, Landon said, but “until the neighborhood can come together and say, ‘This is what we’d like,’ and be civil about it … your potential buyers all run away.”
In late 2013, many residents had stridently opposed earlier Grand Haven Realty President Jim Cullis’ proposal to buy the property and convert it into a regional park.
Netts said Finnigan’s suggestion for a coalition of agencies and officials from the city, the county and the state working together “has great promise.”
“Let’s reach out to our legislators, and say, ‘What can you do to help us?’” he said.
