SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – The Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club is closing shop and nearby homeowners are worried about the impact will have on their neighborhood.
The golf course is located on the east side of Interstate-15 and scheduled to close on July 18th. The country club tried to cut back on water usage but it still could not swing the rising water bills.
Residents living near the Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club are frustrated because many of them bought homes in the area because of the golf course.
In a statement, general manager Kevin Hwang, whose family has owned the course for the past ten years, said: "Water rates had doubled in less than ten years. While we have spent the last couple of years exploring every possible way to keep the course in operation, we have concluded that irrigating the property with more than 45 million gallons of drinking water each year is simply no longer sustainable.”
Carmel Mountain Ranch was built to accommodate as much housing as possible with more than 670 homes butting up to it.
“The bought homes thinking they would be living on the golf course and now it’s yanked out from underneath them,” said an area resident.
No one knows yet what is going to happen to the land, but residents fear it will turn into an eye sore. Just across the freeway, the old Carmel Highland Gold Course turned into wasteland three years after closing.
The course is zoned as agricultural land. Any changes to zoning would need to be considered by the Community Planning Group, which will be meeting July 11th inside the Carmel Mountain Ranch recreational center.