Glendale leaders have given the OK to a rezoning request that could replace the shuttered Glen Lakes Golf Course with housing, despite years of opposition from nearby residents and a recommendation from the city’s Planning Commission to deny the request.

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve the rezoning request. Council member Bart Turner, whose district includes the former golf course, was the lone vote against the project.

Because of the drastic nature of the change, swapping wide-open green space for housing more dense than the surrounding neighborhoods, the City Council also had to approve an amendment to the general plan, a voter-approved document that lays a road map for the city’s growth and development. 

City leaders in 2018 voted to close the golf course, which the city bought in 1979, and began looking at selling the land because it cost the city more than it brought in. The City Council last year voted to sell the land for $6.5 million to developer Towne Development. 

Council members who voted in favor of the rezoning on Tuesday spoke about how much money the course cost the city and touted new housing as necessary to keep up with the West Valley’s exponential growth.

A half-dozen residents spoke against the project on Tuesday. None spoke in favor.

“It’s a crying shame,” Turner said. “The city’s finances have improved significantly. We can afford to restore this course … I believe the community needs it.”

Planning Commission voted against rezoning 

Glendale’s Planning Commission in August voted unanimously, with one member absent, to recommend that the City Council reject the rezoning request.

“This whole idea of just losing this open space in this neighborhood to me is just frankly just unconscionable,” commission chair Gary Hirsch said at the time. “There is a very substantial consequence to this neighborhood by removing this open space.”

The nine-hole golf course, off 55th and Northern avenues, is a green spot amid the sea of stucco and beige that makes up surrounding homes and businesses.

A presentation highlighting the housing development, dubbed “Trevino at Glen Lakes,” showed the project would include 10 acres of green space, mostly around the edges of the property.

The green space would be maintained by city staff as a city park, according to city documents. And 80% of it would be used for water retention.

But residents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting said that green space wouldn’t be the same as a golf course or a large community park.

“A wash, an overflow, is not a park system,” resident Craig Griffith said.

Development plans 

A sale agreement between the city and the developer allows for up to 173 homes to be built on the site, which will be more dense than the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Residents said they hoped for fewer houses and more green space and were disappointed by the council.

“This is where Glendale began. We need to preserve its historic value,” Jane Bachmann, one of the leaders of the grassroots Save Glen Lakes effort, said at the meeting on Tuesday.

Reach reporter Joshua Bowling at [email protected] or 602-444-8138. Follow him on Twitter @MrJoshuaBowling.

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