Joel Young of Raleigh, the owner of the defunct Wake Forest Golf Course, filed suit against the Town of Wake Forest on Jan. 13, arguing that the town is treating him unfairly by refusing to hear his plan to modify a 1999 Planned Unit Development agreement. Young’s proposal to modify the PUD would allow him to develop a portion of the golf course property.
            After their December business meeting, the Wake Forest commissioners, mayor, town manager and town attorney held a closed session to discuss a special use permit request from Young. The request was based on the same sketch Young showed golf course neighbors during a meeting held in late autumn or early winter.
            The neighbors would not agree to Young’s plan to identify 16 or so acres near the Fairway Villas as open space and split the remaining 130 acres into two tracts. Young reportedly wanted to use the tract next to Capital Boulevard for commercial development and use the interior tract for a use such as a horse farm, though neighbors suspected he would try to sell it for residential development.
            The Wake Forest Town Board, on the advice of their attorney Eric Vernon, unanimously agreed not to hear Young’s request and based that decision on a similar case in which an applicant tried to revise an open space plan. After he was turned down, the applicant sued the city and lost when a judge said the town did have the right to refuse to consider the request.
            The 1999 PUD agreement allowed Young to sell the land for two housing clusters near the golf course entrance off Capital Boulevard: Fairway Villas townhouses which have been built and Clubhouse Villas, which was to be several one-family houses. The Clubhouse Villas owner was forced to enter bankruptcy after he could not obtain construction bank loans after Young announced in 2007 he was closing the course.
            Young’s suit filed in Wake County Superior Court says:
            -- the town is treating Young unfairly and inconsistently
            -- the town’s open space requirements are much less than the open space reserved in the PUD, which was all 147 acres of the golf course
            -- Planning Director Chip Russell told Young reducing the amount of open space in the PUD would be easily done, and
            -- the town board’s refusal to hear Young’s special use request is “arbitrary and capricious.”
            There is no date for any hearing, and town attorney Vernon was out of town this week, not available for comment. He was reported as preparing a response that would be completed within 30 days.
            Young purchased the golf course from Bob Neeb in 1974 for $1.2 million and began developing portions of the sprawling property. He developed the subdivision and sold the individual lots for Country Club Downs on Purnell Road and more recently sold the land for the Riverstone subdivision on Jenkins Road. He also sold the land for Fairview Villas and Clubhouse Villas after the PUD was approved.
            In February of 2006 he announced he planned to sell the course to the national homebuilding firm Centex, but that deal fell through for several reasons, probably including the PUD and the protected watershed designation for Horse Creek which runs through the land end soon after enters Falls Lake.
            Young then announced in October 2007 he would close the course in November. Apparently at that time Raleigh realtor Tommy Fonville, who may have headed up a group of possible investors, was interested in buying the course.
            Golf course neighbors, many of them course members, were disappointed and appalled. Young had advertised their homes as golf-course property and now it was about to disappear. They formed a group, Concerned Citizens for the Preservation of Wake Forest Golf Course in 2006 after Young’s first announcement of a sale and filed suit in November 2007, seeking to prevent Young from selling the land for development or changing the use. The suit also listed the Town of Wake Forest as a defendant. That suit was later withdrawn although the group and other neighbors have continued to talk to Young.
            While that suit was still in court, Young offered to sell the golf course to the town for $2.9 million, an offer the commissioners unanimously rejected after a lengthy closed session in February of 2008.
            Fonville met with the neighbors in the spring of 2008, trying to convince them his plan for a residential development on the course was a good idea and they should try to persuade the town to agree to the necessary rezoning.
            Then in January 2009 the organizers of the North Carolina Renaissance Faire announced that spring’s faire would be held on the golf course, leading to a long public discussion about permits for such events and a number of protests from neighbors, particularly those living in Fairway Villas closest to the faire.
            Young’s most recent attempt to change the character of the golf course land was last fall when he met with neighbors at Wake Union Baptist Church and showed them the sketch he also presented to the town board later. Again, they were unwilling to accede to his plans.
            One of those most deeply involved in attempting to save the land as a golf course is Wanda Mukherjee, who lives in Riverstone. She said this week the neighbors are willing to work with Young. “We’re opposed to splitting up the property. We’re more than willing to work with him on anything that preserves the golf course.”
            In the meantime, the value of the course has declined rapidly from its 2008 tax value of $7 million, the estimated value in the Wake County Revenue Department website. Young appealed the appraisal in 2009, and currently the value of the three parcels – 4.39 acres zoned for conditional use R-15 between Hawkshead and Country Club Downs, the 147.1 acres that were the golf course zoned R-40 with a watershed protection overlay, and 3.55 acres near the entrance also zoned R-40W – are collectively valued at $76,975.92 and the tax bill is $16,186.18.