Ugh....
AB 672 is the most damaging piece of legislation re golf to be filed in a generation.
It proposes to facilitate the development of California’s municipal golf courses (22% of the total courses in the state) as “affordable” housing tracts by:
Removing them from the protections of the Public Park Preservation Act.
Providing an exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Mandating a one-size-fits-all zoning element.
Singling golf as the ONLY open space/recreational activity for which these exemptions and facilitations apply, literally targeting them for development to the exclusion of all other open space/recreational activities.
The bill may take direct aim at California’s publicly owned golf courses (22% of the total), but its passage would put golf’s blood in the water in such a way as to jeopardize the position of golf’s private sector clubs as well. Just as the Public Park Preservation Act is the public game’s backstop against residential/commercial development, ARTICLE XIII, Section 10 of California’s Constitution establishing “open space” as the property tax basis for private golf clubs is the private sector’s backstop against residential/commercial development. Tax something per an economic “highest and best use” standard, and residential/commercial use is what you’re going to get.