HOMEOWNERS TAKE SWING AGAINST GOLF COURSE PLAN.

Byline: EUGENE TONG  Staff Writer

VALENCIA -- Westridge residents have taken a stance against moves by Newhall Land to take the Tournament Players Club golf course private.

The Westridge Master Homeowners Association, which represents 1,048 homeowners in the 1,700-home tract, pays about $200,000 a year to help maintain landscaping along the slopes bordering homes and the 18-hole semiprivate course, according to association President Gary Morgan.

It's fine if it helps enhance fire protection and beautify a community facility in their own backyard, but not for what will become a private business where memberships cost $25,000 to $30,000 a year, he said Tuesday.

``They're passing on that expense to the entire development,'' Morgan said of the course, which opened in 2003 and is now wholly owned by The Newhall Land and Farming Company.

Company spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said Tuesday that she intends to meet with association officials to discuss the issue.

``We'll sit down with the representatives of the HOA in the next week or so to explain why the maintenance was set up in the way it was set up in order to provide fire protection and aesthetic enhancements for the residents,'' she said.

``Our position when we established the Westridge HOA is that it makes sense for the HOA to control the landscaping immediately adjacent to the residences. ... However, since questions have been raised, we will sit down with them and discuss this further.''

Morgan said the HOA registered its concerns recently in a letter to 5th District county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. But for Paul Novak, Antonovich's planning deputy, privatizing the TPC and the association's disputed maintenance fees are separate issues.

``Keep in mind there is an area the golf course is supposed to maintain, and there is an area the HOA is supposed to maintain,'' he said. ``If one or the other are not doing their jobs, that will be straightened out.''

As for plans to make the course members-only, Novak said it's allowed.

``What dictates what occurs there on the golf course are the original conditions,'' he said. ``(County) Planning looked at the conditions and it's pretty clear they're allowed to do this.''

Newhall Land notified the county planners in January of its intent to make the course members-only, and received clearance from officials in March.

As a condition of its 1999 approval, the course could privatize only after it's opened for public play for 15 years, or if two new public regulation-size golf courses opened in the Santa Clarita Valley to ensure there were enough open courses here.

Less than a year later, two long-planned public golf courses opened in Robinson Ranch in Canyon Country, which allowed the TPC to privatize even before it opened in 2003.

``I personally believe that this golf course should remain public for the 15 years from the date that it's open, and the community gets a true benefit of it,'' Morgan said.

``What troubled me most about this -- when the documents were written, they wrote a financially beneficial package for themselves and passed the costs on to the homeowners.''

Still, Lauffer said the homeowners shouldn't be surprised at the move.

``As people were buying homes in Westridge, they were very well aware the TPC would at some point in time go private,'' she said. ``It has been well communicated.''

Current course fees at the TPC range from $90 to $140, compared with $59 to $117 at Robinson Ranch. The area's third public course, Vista Valencia, charges $20 to $30. TPC memberships can cost at least $25,000 per year, though discounts were offered to Westridge home buyers.

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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