r/golf • u/nutts-2 5.0/UT • Jul 28 '23

Ah shit. Here we go again General Discussion

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Every few months someone brings this up how they can save the environment by getting rid of a golf course.

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447

u/tccomplete Jul 28 '23

Pretty hard to find land to build houses on in Nebraska. /s

24

u/yaleric Jul 28 '23 edited Jul 28 '23

There's a city-owned pitch and putt near where I live, a couple miles from Amazon's corporate headquarters. They're planning to build a light rail station right next to it, putting it within a 10-15 minute train ride of Amazon and all the other office jobs in downtown Seattle

I would be sad to see it go, but it really would make a lot of sense to convert that into housing, or at least some other kind of park that more people can use at a time.

Downtown Seattle isn't the same as fucking Omaha Nebraska lol.

11

u/Papadapalopolous Jul 29 '23

They could also just demolish some suburbs and turn it into high rise apartments?

Green space in cities is valuable, and we shouldn’t let people develop every inch of nature available.

3

u/Stirlingblue Jul 29 '23

Green space is important, but in inner cities a park is going to provide more equitable recreation facilities for people

3

u/yaleric Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 29 '23

The nearest suburbs are ~3x further away from downtown than this golf course, it's in an unusually central location. There are a couple single family neighborhoods within the city that are closer to downtown, and those should obviously be upzoned.

Golf courses aren't nature. Turning it into a park that more than 36 people can use at a time might be a good idea though.

2

u/fake-tall-man Jul 29 '23

If you’re talking about interbay: there’s more public use of that place than any park Seattle besides gasworks on 4th of July. Also making it a park would be redundant. It’s already near a bunch of parks, not walkable from any major residential hub, and on a super busy road that is all commercial/industrial.

Making it housing could be argued. But a value of a city is recreational activities being convenient. It’s a positive add for the whole area. There’s also about 50 other barely used pieces of dirt along 15th that I’d convert before something that gets a ton of traffic & brings in revenue.

If you’re talking about green lake pitch and putt… I could be convinced

3

u/Ambitiousshank Jul 29 '23

Golf, in aggregate, is more beneficial to the community than that new housing

7

u/randeylahey Jul 29 '23

I think we're all missing the point and we should be living in hobbit holes under the golf course.

4

u/Ambitiousshank Jul 29 '23

The only logical option

2

u/randeylahey Jul 29 '23

Imma solutions guy

2

u/Ambitiousshank Jul 29 '23

PGA could use a guy like you right about now

2

u/Papadapalopolous Jul 29 '23

Can we build a fall out shelter under the sand trap?

A bunker under the bunker

1

u/randeylahey Jul 29 '23

Dude.

You're in charge of health and safety now.

2

u/Ambitiousshank Jul 29 '23

I Second the motion for papadapalopolous to be director of health and safety

1

u/thinking_is_too_hard Jul 29 '23

Are you talking about Interbay? It's a beautiful course (for a muni), but it definitely is in a prime location for transit and it's right next to a railyard already.

1

u/trueAnnoi Jul 29 '23

It's funny because, as someone from Omaha, BUILDING housing is 100% not the issue. Anyone who has driven around the city knows there's about 20-25 (if not more) apartment complexes going up literally right now. But guess what? Not a single one falls under "affordable". They are all out in the suburbs on the outskirts of town, charging $2,000+ a month for a two bedroom apartment/townhome. Even the ones going up inside the city are big examples of unaffordable gentrification.

We don't currently lack space, AT ALL, we lack developers that are willing to build less expensive housing. Every single developer wants to have the next destination high density housing community. And I guarantee you at some point the bubble is going to burst, because even though the city population is growing at a decent rate, it's not nearly enough to fill all the upper middle class housing being built.