PORT TOWNSEND — The support for golf was palpable at the third and final in-person open house for plans to rework Port Townsend Golf Course.
About 150 people showed up for the two-hour meeting at Fort Worden on Thursday evening to discuss possibilities for the nine-hole course at 1948 Blaine St., in Port Townsend.
City staff, members of the stakeholder group and representatives from the design firm took questions and comments from the audience, many of whom expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed designs.
An online open house is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, and a community survey is available on the city’s website at cityofpt.us/envision.
The city began looking at alternative uses for the golf course in 2020 following feedback to the Parks, Recreation and Open Space plan in which some members of the community expressed interest in seeing the 58-acre space in the center of Port Townsend put to other uses.
A stakeholder group of 21 people was put together in September and has been meeting regularly to discuss the future of the area. The city also hired Seattle-based landscape architecture firm Groundswell to draft potential options for the course, four of which were presented to the community at past public outreach events.
On Thursday, two of the four options were presented. Representatives of the stakeholder group recommended the hybrid golf course option, reducing the footprint of the current golf course and adding other amenities.
Lynn Pierle — who represents local pickleball players on the stakeholder group — said that, though the group had been at times polarized about which direction to go for the course, they had compromised by recommending the hybrid option.
“That was not an easy task,” Pierle said of the stakeholder group’s work. “We were asked to put our interests aside, to not come with an entrenched idea.”
The other option presented Thursday was the “central park” concept, which would completely remove the golf course and replace it with trails, an amphitheater and a community gathering space.
The hybrid option recommended by the stakeholder group representatives would reduce the size of the current course and relocate some of its holes, as well as remove the driving range. Additional walking and biking trails would be added to the area, as would a new dog park; nature play area and civic plaza with pickleball courts and a splash pad water play area.
That plan would take up to 11 years to complete and would cost $4.4 million. That could be funded mostly by grants from the state, stakeholders said.
Rehabilitating and upgrading the current golf course would cost roughly $1.3 million, according to Chris Jones, principal at Groundswell who has designed the various proposals, but that would have to be funded wholly by the city as there are no grants available from the state for golf courses alone, he said
When asked for a show of hands to indicate support for proposals, few hands were raised for the hybrid option, and even fewer for the central park option. During the question-and-answer section, several members of the public criticized the removal of the driving range and said the current layout of the course should remain.
“Why we have not explored that an option that respects the historic nature of this golf course,” said Robert Horner, a golfer who was in the audience. “We should be respecting the integrity of this course layout. You would never do that to a historic building in this town.”
Two members of the stakeholder group in the audience — Gabe Van Lelyveld, representing parents and residents and Forest Shomer, representing advocates of Kah Tai Prairie — rose to speak saying they disagreed with the characterization that the stakeholders had reached consensus on which option to recommend.
“We did not have that consensus,” Van Lelyveld said. “We should not be trying to steer the community at large.”
Some supporters of the golf course were handing out flyers with an alternative proposed design of a hybrid golf course that kept the driving range and the current course layout, but also made space for some of the other amenities sought by the community, such as additional trails and a community garden.
“This is a realistic way to keep the holes as they are and keep the driving range but also add two different trails, add a community garden, add a putt-putt course,” said Barb Matter, a golf player and member of a group called PT Golf and Friends.
“It could be called a golf park,” she added. “It’s a win-win hybrid.”
The Port Townsend City Council is tentatively scheduled to vote on an option for the golf course on July 17, but City Manager John Mauro, who was present at the meeting, said that date was not set in stone. However, Mauro also said that a community reaching full consensus on any plan was not realistic.
Carrie Hite, director of Parks and Recreation Strategy, said there is still time to change the proposed hybrid plan, and noted the alternative hybrid plan submitted by golfers was one of many plans submitted by community groups.
“This is one of probably 10 different plans I’ve received from the community,” Hite said later.
“So when I say ‘Yes’ to a plan I say ‘No’ to nine other people that have a housing plan, an athletic field, many many different plans. This came in on the ninth month of a 10-month process.
“There are always options. That’s why we’re here to listen to the public and to do the survey to get out into the community,” Hite said of potentially altering the proposed hybrid plan.
“One thing that we’ll do is listen to the stakeholders and listen to the community,” she continued.
“We have a lot of people here tonight that are golfers and we do hear from a lot of other people that are not golfers that want to be able to use the land and walk on it and be safe,” Hite said.
“We have to weigh all the pros and cons of each and come up with some kind of compromise that we can all use the land together.”
More information about the golf course plan can be found at the City of Port Townsend’s website.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
