Since agreeing to purchase the former Baldoon Golf Course outside of Wallaceburg in August of 2014, local farmer Scott Kilbride said it has been a “nightmare.”
Kilbride said he was approached by Jim Hawryluk, the owner of the course, to purchase the property and turn it into farmland.
“Eventually they decided that the current value of farmland was exceeding the value they would be happy with to sell it as a golf course, so they made some inquiries to some farmer friends and they ended up sending it to me,” Kilbride said. “We had about a three week negotiation, and closed the deal.”
Kilbride said the Hawryluk’s were trying to sell the golf course, as a golf course, for five years.
“In the process they lost a considerable amount of money and they had countless offers, either real or true, based on the rumours you hear around town,” he said. “Either the offers were not enough money and the Hawryluk’s were not willing to accept it, or the people that made the proposal didn’t have the money to pay for it.”
Hawryluk’s son Michael had been running the golf course up until 2009, when he died suddenly.
Kilbride said by August of 2014, him and Hawryluk had signed a deal.
“Both sides met with the planning department (Storey Samways), they outlined what they thought would happen based on history,” Kilbride said. “He suspected that there would be some issues up in the northwest corner, by the pump house. Because the other side of the road is the (St. Clair Region Conservation Authority’s) domain apparently. They have a buffer zone and it entailed 2.18 acres of the golf course.”
Kilbride said Hawryluk and himself came to an agreement to keep it as a pond.
“We were both going to participate in the costs associated with that and we could live with that essentially,” he said. “Ourselves and the planning department were both astounded when they came back and asked what they did ask for. What really irked me the most, nobody from the Conservation Authority came to look at it before imposing what they wanted.”
Kilbride said the SCRCA asked for an environmental study to be conducted.
“Jim decided it was worth doing and he was willing to bite the bullet to the degree he assumed it was at that time,” he said. “There was a little misunderstanding in how extensive and how lengthy the study was suppose to be. He hired a person, as instructed… and I’m assuming that the Conservation Authority approved the hire.”
Kilbride added: “I think a lot of people thought this was going to kibosh the deal, and a lot of the rumours came back to me that it did. Jim and I have been very consistent, our deal has really remained unchanged other than the ever-changing timeline.”
Kilbride said everything he wanted to do to turn the course into farmland is allowed under the current zoning in Chatham-Kent.
“Nobody ever realized this, and I’m not sure council did,” he said. “Even with the study on, the guy asked us to do certain things. I cut the grass according to his requests, I stayed away from doing certain things that I would have liked to have done as far as weed control. We did our very best for as long as we could afford to do, everything they asked of us… everything that the Conservation Authority and the consultant instructed us what he would like to have done.”
Kilbride said one of the first things the consultant did was look at every tree on the property.
“He told us everyone was cleared, there was no endangered species, most of them were not native,” he said. “With no tree cutting by-law and the current zoning allowing it, as far as I was concerned, we could have started ripping trees. We still didn’t do it, honestly because now it was spring and I’m farming. That was part of it.”
“Eventually we realized we were going to lose another year, and another six figures between the two of us in our estimation… and quite honestly we started because we could. We always could. Some people didn’t like that. I guess the part that really boggles my mind is the excavator was delivered in June, the tree removal started in late June, early July. One of the individuals around here saw it, has talked to me about it over the summer and had no issues until apparently I touched ‘the old nine’ because apparently there was an effort to save ‘the old nine’. It’s far too late.”
Kilbride said all of the tree removal he has done to this point on the property, could have started Oct. 15 when the golf course closed last year.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m ardent environmentalist, but I’m very realistic,” he said. “I do a lot of things for the environment that I do not have to do and they cost me my money, not somebody else’s money. I’ve got wind breaks back here that I’ve maintained. I’ve installed a water control structure at my own cost to try and control nitrates and leaching out. I was looking at doing things like that. I intend to do those here as well.”
Kilbride said the study on the property is completed, however they are still waiting for the report.
He added that there has been a lot of misunderstanding about what was being studied on the property.
“What I read of what was being asked for was to identify any endangered species or species at risk on the property,” Kilbride said. “The fall one he did and it was clear, the spring one he did it was clear, the summer one he did and I was told he found something that needed to be reported.”
Kilbride said since he started looking after the property late last fall, there has been people coming in and out on ATVs.
“They come in, go across the back and go over to this pond and they leave, they come right back out,” he said.
Kilbride said he has inquired with multiple people and former members of the golf course about what wildlife they have ever seen in the ponds.
“The best answer I got was golf balls… some people said nothing,” he said. “I did see some frogs last fall, I did see some large tadpoles. I came back in March to look at the property as things are melting and literally, there were nearly 2,000 dead fish. There were crappy to 18-inch long carp. It has been compromised as far as I’m concerned. Based on the publicity, you know what length people will go to stop something that they don’t want to happen. Unfortunately, I have no proof. I documented it all with a number of pictures, I had a number of witnesses go back and verify. Put it to the environmental guy… they said it was cold, they all died from oxygen deprivation. Nobody came and looked at it. That was my concern that somebody would bring something in that was endangered.”
Kilbride said he would be open to negotiations about maintaining the area on the property near the pump house.
Another issue that Kilbride said concerns him is the potential conflict of interest with his cousin, Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley.
“I haven’t interfered with anything Jeff Wesley has done over the years,” Kilbride said. “While I disagreed with some things that were going on, it would be a conflict of interest for me personally. As far as I’m concerned, he’s in a conflict of interest with anything I do. I assume that since he’s on both the council and the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority, and a lawyer and a long-time councillor that he would have realized that the relationship alone, whether it was good or bad, is a conflict of interest.”
Wesley was critical of the trees being chopped down and topsoil being removed from the property, in an article published Sept. 11 on the Sydenham Current: Wallaceburg councillor fuming over Baldoon tree chopping
“There is a proper process to follow and I am really disappointed that all involved did not wait until the rezoning came before Council before destroying parts of the golf course,” Wesley told the Sydenham Current.
“That is the way good corporate citizens work. What if the rezoning is turned down… there is no longer a golf course to go back to as it will have been destroyed. So then does Council approve the rezoning because there is no longer a golf course there? That is wrong.”
Wesley told the Chatham Voice he is not in any conflict.
“I was called by local residents who asked me what was going on at the (former) golf course,” he said. “I’m not about to tell them they can’t talk to me. It’s my belief that the owners of the course should have let the public know what was going on and that they can, in fact, do some work, then the issue might have been avoided, but that’s their choice.”
Kilbride said he didn’t go looking for any fights.
“Councillors representing this area are aware of what I have been doing and have called me and I’ve told them honestly what I have been doing,” he said. “After the stink was raised, I called to find out… I don’t believe I’m in any violations of any by-laws. I believe everything I have done is completely legal. I believe I am holding back on some very completely legal things that I could do, in terms of filling in the ponds.”
Kilbride said he wonders if Wesley has a financial interest in the property as well, based on some online comments on the Sydenham Current Facebook page .
“An individual approached me asking me what I would want to sell the front nine,” he said. “I didn’t want to sell the front nine, but he better have between this number and this number available and then come back and talk to me. He never came back and talked to me, he went to Jim and tried to buy him at that number. I have no proof that Mr. Wesley was part of that, but the post on (the Sydenham Current Facebook page) by his son says that ‘my dad was involved with a group trying to save the place.’ So again, it goes back to my conflict of interest. If he is in a conflict of interest, that is something else he should not be doing.”
Wesley told the Chatham Voice he wasn’t involved financially in any way.
“I’m not even a golfer,” he said. “It was a small group just looking to see if they could do anything and obviously it didn’t happen.”
Kilbride said he had not received any notice of any by-law violations, until he got a property standards notice on Wednesday, Sept. 23 saying he needed to cut the grass.
“Nobody said anything until this came in the mail,” he said. “Someone has decided or complained the grass is too long, although it is certainly no longer than it has been since May. I have been cutting up around the clubhouse up until a couple of weeks ago. There was a wedding taking place here and they asked to keep the grass long because they liked the look of it better. Apparently it is somebody’s concern, I’m not sure with just the front or the whole thing.”
Kilbride said he was prepared to “spray and kill everything that is out here” after receiving the notice.
He said his options were to either plow it or spray it.
However, he said a “reasonable solution” was reached with the Municipality, which prevented him from doing this.
Kilbride said eventually everything is going to be killed anyway.
“I didn’t start removing trees until the birds were done nesting, and I could have,” he said. “I had this property enrolled in two environmental studies with the University of Guelph, one is going to be expired and done before we can do anything to take part in it. The other one has done some preliminary work and is so excited about it they are trying to get it struck out as its own environmental research project. Don’t know where that is going to go, but every delay it is just ridiculous.”
Wesley said in an e-mail to the Sydenham Current that the rezoning of the property is not expected to come before council for discussion until the end of 2015, or early 2016.
Wesley said a site alteration by-law is coming before council in October, a by-law that Chatham-Kent currently doesn’t have.
“Bottom line is they can alter the site so long as they do not use it for agriculture which makes the rezoning somewhat immaterial because most if not all of the golf course will be destroyed before the rezoning is dealt with,” Wesley said. “In my opinion there is a flaw in the system which I hope a site alteration by-law will correct.”
Kilbride said the entire process “has been unbelievably frustrating.
“There are people that are not happy this is happening because they can’t walk their dog over here anymore, there is people upset because they can’t golf here anymore. I didn’t come looking to do this. If this was a viable golf course, I would not have been able to afford to buy it, nor would I have been interested in it. I did not approach them, they approached me. It was going to be turned into farmland. I believe I’ve demonstrated that I’ll go to great lengths to be as environmentally conscious and environmentally feasible financially and physically to accomplish that goal,” Kilbride said.
“I’ve had so many people, farmers, business leaders of the community support me and come up to me and say ‘I don’t know how you are putting up with this.’ This place was done. They appreciate what I am trying to do. Due to one person, who I feel is in conflict of interest, it has just been a nightmare. I conferred with everybody I trust and my family before I completed this purchase. My daughter was so excited about it she switched majors to take agriculture to stay here.”
Kilbride said technically the deal can’t close until the rezoning is completed.
The frustration felt by Scott and Jim is certainly understandable but they should also acknowledge the frustration by the local business community, neighbours to the golf course and environmental groups who witnessed the destruction of what was once a proud locally owned community asset that helped draw seniors and families to our community. Many saw this as yet another example of taking away another asset from our community. As any competent Councillor should do I responded to a multitude of emails and calls from the community when the destruction began. Everyone knew that the environmental study was not complete (it is not complete until written and approved by the MNRF) and that the rezoning before Chatham-Kent was also not complete so the community wanted to know, as I did, how the golf course could be destroyed prior to these approvals being in place. When I looked into this and discovered that the S.C.R.C.A. and Chatham-Kent did not have the proper tools in place to stop the work I notified the community and the local media. Basically Scott can do whatever he wants so long as he does not use the lands for agriculture prior to all approvals being in place. Scott tries to insinuate that because we are distant cousins that I am in a conflict of interest. I do not recall ever receiving a call or question from him on this or any other issue over the past 20 years. If he had checked with his lawyer, former Councillor Tom McGregor, he would have learned that this situation does not come close to any conflict of interest legislation. It was further insinuated that I may have a conflict because of some financial interest in the golf course – that is rubbish. When the golf course was for sale there was a group who approached me to try and save it and as a responsible Councillor I offered to assist them if I could….not financially in any way…but as a Councillor.
It is unfortunate that Scott feels frustrated but , in my opinion, a bit of proactive communication with the community prior to the destruction of the golf course would have gone a long ways to preventing the outpouring of concerns he is seeing now. I was also criticized by the current owner and to that I would say to Jim just imagine the outpouring of concern if you were closing a golf course in your home community, which of course is not Wallaceburg.
I am sorry that they are unhappy with me but as a Councillor for everyone I have simply responded to the multitude of people who have contacted me with concerns and tried to find out answers for them and I will continue to do so.