Jay Werb & Ellen Katz wrote this very interesting piece in the Newton Conservators newsletter earlier this year. It discusses the legal status of golf courses and how it relates to open space protection.
discuss ….
Jay Werb & Ellen Katz wrote this very interesting piece in the Newton Conservators newsletter earlier this year. It discusses the legal status of golf courses and how it relates to open space protection.
discuss ….
Is there reason to believe that any of the golf courses mentioned are seeking to change the way we are using land? If not, then perhaps we should focus on finding a way to get Newton high school students off of zoom and into the classroom.
Unfortunately the article did not discuss the private Newton golf courses’ use of pesticide in their turf maintenance. The value of open space to the environment is minimized if the golf courses are poisoning the land and water.
Currently there is a bill in the MA State House to reduce this risk. ‘An Act relative to the prohibition of chemical pesticides on golf courses’, HD 5263.
I suppose since I threw an off-the-cuff mini-rant at Woodland in the other thread, I should at least stop in here. The private golf courses’ land is technically open space, but it provides little to none of the social or environmental value that civic open space supports. The courses are limited-access to a tiny portion of the most well-off residents (and quite possibly more non-residents than residents), the maintenance is in the worst fashion possible in an environmental sense (pesticides as Lucia mentions, water use, low tree density, etc), and tax subsidies for exclusive private clubs are bad public policy. If your goal with open space is literally to just not have buildings there, the golf courses do achieve that, I guess? But there’s a whole litany of ways that we could do better by Newton, even if I am under no illusion that the situation will change any time soon.
@Elmo – I think you’re getting your threads mixed up. :-)
I agree with Jonathan Stilwell. This is by no means a public access course, and if someone wants to bring up the use of the courses to raise money thru golf tournaments as a form of public access, give it a go. What many of us are asking is that private groups pay their fair share in the running of Newton.
I understand – and agree with – the sentiment that private groups should pay their fair share to support the City.
Under 61(B), the golf clubs *are* paying their “fair share” as determined by the laws of the State. Is 61(B) a good law? That’s a fair and reasonable debate.
But what should their “fair share” be? The golf courses add no students to our schools. Their police and fire burden cannot possibly be very high. They certainly benefit from the underlying infrastructure of the city (public works, roads, etc.). They also support the land values (and tax revenues) of their neighborhoods.
Some clubs, for example the Newton Squash and Tennis club on Commonwealth Ave., pay full freight commercial tax rate on their properties (61B does not apply to tennis). Does it seem “fair” that a group of private citizens (mostly Newton residents) run a non-profit club and pay the city as though they are a commercial venture? When other entities (B.C., NWH, et. al. cough cough) that are *certainly* being run as commercial ventures masquerade as “non profits” and pay the city essentially nothing?
There is inequity *everywhere* in the tax code, and golf clubs feel like an odd place to start…If we really feel strongly about developing the open space that is currently dedicated to golf, why not start with the course that the City already owns?
I just want to add that Woodland provides a very valuable service to the City when it allows MedFlight to land helicopters on their property for the purpose of transporting critically ill patients to Boston….
@donald Ross, I do not believe that anyone has raised the issue of development on that open space that is a private golf course. This is a discussion of organization’s paying their fair share. So let’s discuss what their fair share should be. I am in agreement with you that Boston College and Newton Wellesley Hospital do not pay their fair share.
Doesn’t the fact that state considers golf courses developable land adversely impact our 40b calculation since a certain % of your developable land must have affordable housing? So since it isn’t truly developable per se it makes it harder for Newton to achieve the 49b safe harbor threshold.
@Jack Leader – the premise of the linked article is how to ‘protect’ the golf courses from development, and there is another post/thread on V14 (that you also commented on) where numerous posters support the takeover and development of Woodland.
But I agree, the general “fair share” equity question is a really interesting one. There are three fundamental categories of property tax in Newton: (1) Residential; (2) Commercial; (3) Exempt. Who should pay at what rate?
On the extremities, it’s pretty obvious. Resident homeowners should clearly pay the residential rate. For-profit commercial enterprises (office, retail, industrial) should clearly pay the commercial rate. But in the middle…it gets messy.
Since we’re focused on golf clubs, let’s think about how other “clubs” are treated. The Neighborhood Club in West Newton? Pays at the commercial tax rate (albeit their assessment is shockingly low). The Sons of Italy on Adams Street? Exempt.
The YMCA and JCC, both Exempt. Lifetime Fitness and Equinox, both commercial. And yes, I get the *difference*…but is that difference worth a significant tax exemption?
It also never really made sense to me that Commercial pays the commercial rate…unless your business is in leasing apartments…in which case, the apartments are Residential. But a hotel? Commercial. And if your business is in teaching students or preaching the gospel, you pay neither commercial *nor* residential despite both making money and housing people.
IMO the whole thing is a pretty arbitrary shell game that should be reformed from the ground up…but sure, let’s start with the fact that the golf courses pay a little bit too little.
@Donald Ross – Rightly or wrongly, a golf course’s favorable tax treatment isn’t based on it being a “club. It’s based on it being a large plot of undeveloped land. As the article describes in detail, Chapter 61 lets an owner of a farm, golf course etc to voluntary enter into a covenant to not develop the land in the future, in return for the land only being assessed at 25% of its far market value today.
@Jerry
I don’t think anybody is questioning whether the private golf clubs are correctly paying their legally-owed property taxes. Safe to assume we read the article.
The question/comment raised by @Jack Leader and others is whether the provisions allowed by 61(b) are “fair” or “good tax policy”. It’s in that context that I’m thinking about what is “fair” – not what is currently the status quo.
Since I am unfamiliar with the details of 61B (or any other State law except 40B which has been in Newton’s news for a long time now), I’d like to know what tax redress is there, if any, if a private golf course becomes economically unviable, fails, or for some other reason is sold to a developer? In order to develop the land, does the developer have to repay the taxes on the 75% of the annual assessed value for each year that were “deferred” while the golf course was used as a golf course? Does the golf club have to repay those additional taxes out of the sale price of the now developable land? If I installed a one-hole golf course in my backyard and charged for its use, would I get a tax break? ;)
Golf courses use highly polluting gasoline engine-powered equipment and tuns of poisonous pesticides to ‘maintain’ that so-called ‘undeveloped’ land. If it were truly ‘undeveloped’ and not actually developed into huge plots of high-maintenance-demanding grass, all for the pleasure of dues-paying members who can afford it, then the tax break might be warranted. As things now stand, all the other Newton property-owners who pay 100% (not just the 25% the golf clubs pay) of their property taxes are subsidizing this for the clubs and their members pleasure. If that land were truly ‘undeveloped’, it would be wild, not acre-upon-acre of high-maintenance lawn.