Thank you for considering a donation to our legal defence fund.
You can e-Transfer a donation to:
SaveCochraneGolfCourse@gmail.com
How-To: Send money with Interac e-Transfer
- Log into your online or mobile banking app and select the account.
- Add our email address: SaveCochraneGolfCourse@gmail.com
- Enter the amount you'd like to donate.
- No need to enter a security question as we have registered for Interac e-Transfer® Autodeposit. (If you do get asked, confirm the email address spelling.)
- Feel free to leave an optional message with your name and property address if you'd like us to tag your donation in our database.
- Make payable to the “RC Legal Defense Fund”
- Mail or hand deliver to 92 Riverview Drive, Cochrane, AB T4C 1K7, ATTN: Ray Smith (Treasurer for the RCLD Steering Committee).
Please Ask Your Neighbours and Friends to Help Too!
Here's what you need to know ....
Mr. Hong, Cochrane Golf Club's (“CGC’s”) representative and a professional land developer, is once again taking a run at clearing the path and impediments to golf course redevelopment, this time trying to declare that the restrictive covenant that they signed in 2006 to prevent any further non-golf-related development as no longer valid (claiming they can't make money) and illegal. Cochrane Riverview community residents fought his father 2004 through 2006, and again in 2019, and here we are again, this time forced to go to court in 2022/23 for a fight that just won’t go away.
The same battle has played out time and time again in courtrooms and public hearings across the country, most recently in Chestermere to Calgary's east. In October 13, 2020, media got word that the ownership of Chestermere's Lakeside Golf Club ownership had announced it's intention to close the golf course after 30 years, citing "financial difficulties." There was public outcry. You can read more about Chestermere and Slokker Homes failed proposal to turn that 18-hole golf course into a residential subdivision by clicking here. If you dig a little, you will find an interesting and unsettling link, which confirms why we must remain vigilant.
It should be no surprise that land developers constantly contact golf course owners and municipalities to pursue higher-value uses for golf course lands with zero emotional connection to the fact that the golf course is a prime recreational asset and attraction for the entire town, nearby residents, and golf enthusiasts, not to mention the prime selling feature of the golf community homes. In the case of the Cochrane Golf Course:
- The golf course was approved in 1989 subject to the condition that it would always remain a golf course and as a buffer to the sawmill - this is part of the public record! Original residents bought their homes on this promise.
- The present ownership, CGC, bought the course in 2003 subject to the public record and immediately removed evidence of a 50-year golf course lease and began a 5 year battle to convert the driving range to create a townhouse subdivision.
- There was fierce community opposition and in 2006 CGC offered to “self-restrict any further development of golf course lands” in exchange for rezoning approval for their townhouse subdivision.
- An agreement was reached between the Town of Cochrane, golf course ownership, and the affected residents that we would back off and allow approval of the subdivision in exchange for a Restrictive Covenant limiting any future development to golf course operations only. CGC helped craft and signed the agreement!
- Then in 2019, CGC is back - this time they want to build a daycare, or a convenience store, or a liquor store, or a commercial strip mall of some sort. Enough is enough we say, NO MORE NON-GOLF DEVELOPMENT MEANS NO MORE DEVELOPMENT!
- Nope - the golf course ownership now wants to renege on the 2006 agreement and has launched a Court Application to remove the Restrictive Covenant from their land title citing they cannot make money and that the agreement is illegal.
- Give us a break .. we (the community residents) are fighting back and 150 of us have retained a lawyer to fight the financial viability argument, which the Town of Cochrane cannot. The Town can defend that the agreement is legal however, and we are in this together.
Our goal is to raise $20,000 from the community at large, from anyone who loves the game of golf or green spaces or Cochrane, from anyone who wants to help the little guys fight back against land developers who have no sense of fair play.
Please donate now and thanks!
You can e-Transfer a donation to:
SaveCochraneGolfCourse@gmail.com
Cheques are accepted to:
Make payable to the "RC Legal Defense Fund”
Deliver to 92 Riverview Drive, Cochrane, AB T4C 1K7
