Plan scratches mini-golf, goes for ‘green’

Residents’ proposal for Sligo Creek course aims to make financial, environmental sense

Improvements could include adding native plants and grasses to the course’s rough and renovating the clubhouse to make it operate by solar energy.

Keith Miller, director of the Montgomery County Revenue Authority, said he has been talking to representatives from Audubon International, a New York-based nonprofit that works to promote nature-friendly golf course development, about adapting one of their programs for the Sligo Creek Golf Course. While he said there was ‘‘no absolute commitment” to Audubon International, Miller has a history with the nonprofit. In 2001, he oversaw a new golf course built by the Audubon International’s standards in Port Washington, N.Y.

Nancy Richardson, director of Audubon International’s Signature Programs, confirmed Miller had an application on file with the nonprofit. The next step was Miller’s, she said.

The Sligo Creek Golf Course was eligible for the group’s Classic Program, which works with courses undergoing renovations, not those that are being built from the ground up. Requirements for the Classic Program include education in environmental stewardship for those who run the course, proper drainage systems to protect water quality and measures to protect wildlife during, among others.

Participants in the program must pay a registration fee of $4,500, and a fee of about $21,000 for the long-term plan provided by a team of experts.

Richardson said it was too early to tell whether the course would be a good fit for Audubon International, and whether mini-golf would be appropriate for the space.

But Miller said the Revenue Authority also was working on hiring firms that would lead studies about the current proposal’s environmental and traffic impacts. The Revenue Authority, which operates the county’s golf courses, the Montgomery County Airpark and other self-supporting public use facilities, uses those enterprises to issue revenue bonds and finance county projects.

Miller said he hoped to set up a meeting with the community detailing the results of the study by the end of November.

‘‘We’re listening and paying attention to what their concerns are,” Miller said. ‘‘That’s why we’re moving forward with these studies.”

Nearly 40 people attended a meeting hosted by the North Hills of Sligo Creek Civic Association Aug. 23 to voice their worries that the proposal offered by Miller to the Planning Board last March was out of proportion with the course’s current surroundings. The Sligo Creek Golf Course, located at 9701 Sligo Creek Parkway, has nine holes over fewer than 70 acres. Another course inside the Beltway operated by the Revenue Authority, Falls Road Golf Course in Potomac, has 18 holes over 158 acres next to residential neighborhoods.

‘‘This would be a very large installation on a small piece of property,” said Ludolph Welanetz, president of the North Hills of Sligo Creek Civic Association, at the meeting.

The current proposal from the county’s Revenue Authority, which has operated the Sligo Creek Golf Course since taking over the duties from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 2006, seeks to re-route the course around the perimeter of the existing area, expand the clubhouse and snack area, and add one or two lighted mini-golf courses and a two-level driving range with 60 to 70 stations.

Miller said any plans discussed before the Planning Board were not final, but added that something had to be done to bring the course out of the red.

Miller said the course had been a money-loser for Park and Planning since at least 2004. In 2004, the course was operating at a loss of about $22,000, compared to about $70,600 in 2005 and $54,000 in 2006. Figures for the first half of 2007 were not yet available, he said, adding that the above numbers did not take into account the course’s infrastructure costs. The budget for the course is about $700,000 per year, he said, compared to $2 million for an 18-hole facility.

‘‘Ideally, you don’t want a golf course to lose money,” he said.

Miller said the ‘‘family aspect to the facility,” the proposed mini-golf courses, added to the course’s potential of becoming a facility that made money, he said. Some neighborhood residents are opposed to the mini-golf courses.