The plan includes four separate agreements in which the park district will purchase the property to create a natural area and operate the Golf Learning Center, while the city will share use of the parking lot and use four acres of the property for a tree nursery.
The Highland Park City Council and the Board of Park Commissioners plan to hold a joint meeting May 29 to outline conditions for splitting up properties at the Highland Park (Ill.) Country Club and sharing facilities, expenses and revenue, the Chicago Tribune reported.
City and park district officials hope four separate agreements will be ready for formal consideration in June. One agreement will cover the park district’s purchase of the golf course property from the city for conversion to a natural area with walking trails, the Tribune reported.
A second contract will cover terms for sharing the use of the Highland Park Country Club building and parking lot, including how banquet operations and general maintenance will be handled. The parking lot also serves the Recreation Center of Highland Park, which abuts the banquet facility but sits on park district-owned land, the Tribune reported.
Under a third agreement, the park district will operate the Golf Learning Center, including a driving range and miniature golf course. A fourth contract details a mutual agreement to set aside four acres at the northwest corner of the golf course for the city’s tree nursery, the Tribune reported.
Park District Executive Director Liza McElroy and Park Board President Brian Kaplan said on May 8 that attorneys for the two governments are still working out the final language of the agreements. Park board members had been provided draft versions of the legal documents that afternoon, the Tribune reported.
“We have come to agreements on 95 percent” of the issues, Kaplan reported at a park board workshop meeting.
Kaplan said one unknown factor complicating negotiations is uncertainty over what portion of the former golf course property the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may want to incorporate into a flood control plan that could be years away, the Tribune reported.
At the urging of Mayor Nancy Rotering and the city of Highland Park, the Army Corps of Engineers recently initiated a preliminary study of flooding along the two forks of the Chicago River that run through Highland Park, Deerfield, Lake Forest, Northbrook and other communities. The East Fork, often referred to as the Skokie River, runs through the club property, the Tribune reported.
“Unfortunately it is hard to guess what may be needed by the Army Corps, and what they may ask for,” Kaplan said. McElroy said the Army Corps of Engineers last assessed the property in the early 1980s.
The city and park district have been entangled in agreements involving the Highland Park Country Club property for more than two decades. The city purchased the club property in the early 1990s to prevent a residential development and preserve open space, the Tribune reported.
Golf course and banquet operations were transferred to the park district in 2015 in keeping with the terms of a 1996 agreement. But citing the imprudence of maintaining two public golf courses, the park board notified the city last summer of its intent to discontinue golf at the club, the Tribune reported.
Golf operations ended December 31, the Tribune reported.
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