The two biggest challenges are strict zoning regulations and community resistance, experts say.
Mr. Brown received county approval for his project, which will include stores, restaurants and a hotel on more than 30 acres, as well as walking trails that wind around two small lakes and through a seven-acre public park.
“We were able to work through the zoning,” he said. “After we showed residents the totality of our project, the trails and the park, neighbors were really cooperative.”
For residential developers, the opportunities are numerous: From 1986 to 2006, 4,400 new courses were built around the country, according to the National Golf Foundation, an industry research group. But since then, more than 1,000 have closed. Many others have gone on the market as revenues decline and operational expenses climb, including the high cost of water for irrigation.
That is especially true in Arizona, where every day in the summer, golf courses consume three to five acre-feet of water. (An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land one foot deep, or nearly 326,000 gallons, and can cost $1,000, depending on the water source.) The state’s 302 courses use 119,000 acre-feet, or nearly four billion gallons, of water per year, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Water and other costs were an issue in the conversion of the Rancho Vistoso Golf Club, north of Tucson, into a 202-acre natural preserve. Preserve Vistoso, a community group, collaborated with the Conservation Fund, a national environmental group, to raise $1.8 million to acquire the course this year and donate it to the Town of Oro Valley.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
