The Cromwell Golf Club will have to wait until May to find out if the Cromwell Community Board will buy some of its land.
The club is offering the board almost 25ha of freehold land for $5 million and proposes to lease it back at a nominal fee of 3% of the sale price.
The land is situated between the clubhouse and the Golden Gate Lodge, on Barry Ave, with State Highway 8B to the north, and contains many of the first nine holes.
It has a capital value of $1.2 million (land value $920,000, improvements $280,000). The remainder of the original golf club land is Crown-owned reserve and has been leased by the club from the Central Otago District Council for many years.
The board went to the community for advice and received 98 submissions. Ten submitters spoke in Cromwell yesterday.
The club's chairman, John Olssen, answered recent criticism of the club's administration. He said the club had come a long way since 2003, but admitted it had wrestled with management over the past two to three years.
However, he said there had been some big changes in the past seven or eight months, with new managers and a new level of discipline in the financial control of the club.
Community board member Vic Coster asked if the club had a plan ‘‘B'' if it did not sell the land. Mr Olssen said the club had some support from some trusts but the Central Lakes Trust would not support building redevelopment.
‘‘We have explored every opportunity in this community.''
Community board chairman Neil Gillespie was surprised so few members had submitted on the proposal. Mr Olssen said the same could be said about the small number of submissions from the community of 4000.
Colin Cowie, a life member of the Cromwell Golf Club and coach of the Cromwell College Golf Academy, criticised the way the finances were being handled.
‘‘They were spending more on administration than greenkeepers, and we are two-thirds bigger than Balmacewen [in Dunedin] and we only had one greenkeeper."
They budgeted $60,000 on project management to oversee the building of the new clubhouse when we already have a manager and there are at least half a dozen builders in Cromwell who could do it sitting on their ear,'' he said.
CODC property officer Brian Taylor said it was one of the most difficult reports he had had to prepare.
‘‘There has been a two-thirds majority of support, but a significant number of those have said they support the proposal but not much else. I feel it should not be a measure of numbers but of content.''
A quarter of the submitters believed the land should be a reserve like others in the town, 20% said it would be good for the club for financial reasons and a benefit to Cromwell, while 13% believed it would prevent the loss of green space.
Those opposing said the council was obligated to manage its funds prudently, or funds would be better spent elsewhere, and the club should be selfsupporting. Some saw the sale as a cash hand-out.
The Central Otago District Council (CODC) has employed an independent consultant to report on the viability of the club. His report is due on April 30.
The board deferred making a recommendation until the report was available and had been considered.
