Mike Belbin, blasting out the bunker in the final round, wins the PGA of Alberta Tour Championship at the Royal Mayfair Golf Club in Edmonton on Sept. 1, 2015.
A proposed lease extension for a private golf club operating in the river valley will go before city council’s executive committee on Monday.
The deal would see the Royal Mayfair Golf Club pay $870,000 as an additional 18 years of prepaid rent, extending its current lease, that is set to expire in 2051, by 50 years to 2069.
The Royal Mayfair Golf Club has been on the same land on the edge of the North Saskatchewan River since 1922. The parcel is larger than the adjacent 68-hectare Hawrelak Park.
Divided annually, the golf course’s yearly lease would be about $48,000. That’s a jump from the $35,000 annual sum that the club’s manager previously told Postmedia it pays in rent. Including taxes, the course is paying about $200,000 to the city per year. The proposed agreement going to committee Monday stipulates that the $870,000 will be paid in full upon the agreement being finalized.
A report on the proposed agreement states that the fee was negotiated by administration to reflect market value.
Another term of the agreement would be to formalize seasonal public access to the land for cross-country skiing between Dec. 1 and March 31.
The club previously told Postmedia it has 475 full shareholders, all of whom who have paid a $39,500 entry fee and roughly $10,000 in annual dues.
The golf course falls in Coun. Ben Henderson’s ward, and he said that while he understands concerns raised by a citizen group calling for greater public consultation on the lease agreement, council has to recognize that the Mayfair began its significant investment in building up its assets well before there was other interest in the river valley.
“If we were starting from scratch, I think this would be a no brainer, the answer would be no,” he said.
Henderson said he thinks the main focus at Monday’s meeting will be ensuring that the golf course is paying at least market value, and getting clarity about public access.
He added that the “last thing” the city needs is another golf course to manage, and that the lease isn’t ending anytime soon whether or not they vote to extend it.
“I don’t know what would happen at the end of a lease. Clearly no one, I think, would be crazy enough to suggest you should be digging up a fairly significant asset,” he said.
“Their ability to be able to continue to reinvest in their property is contingent on knowing that they’re still going to be there long term,” Henderson said.
‘This is our land’
“These decisions shouldn’t be made in isolation as one-offs, for one golf course. They should be part of a broader strategy for our vision for city land, and our vision for our parks,” said Friends of Our Park spokesman Michael Janz, speaking at city hall on Thursday.
Janz said his group was alerted that the proposed lease was going before executive committee prior to the report’s release, and that they are concerned a hasty decision will made without enough of a public conversation about the future of the river valley.
“All we’re saying is this needs to be part of a bigger conversation.”
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