Forum on StoneRidge’s future planned June 5
A group of StoneRidge Country Club members and homeowners are organizing a June 5 forum to discuss the future of the 18-hole golf course.
The new group’s spokesman, Mitch Stellar, says he hopes to open a dialogue with owner Michael Schlesinger, who earlier this year commissioned a public opinion survey to judge reaction to the possibility of the city taking over all or part of the 18-hole golf course and new homes being built on the site.
The new group, Save StoneRidge, was formed during a May 10 meeting of about 20 club members and owners of homes that border the course. Stellar said the group’s initial focus will be “to help our owner to succeed in keeping this an 18-hole country club golf course.”
To date, Schlesinger has not responded to requests for details, Stellar said.
“We’re so confused due to a lack of communication,” Stellar said. A goal of the June 5 forum, to be held at 4 p.m. at the country club, is to hopefully clarify what Schlesinger has in mind for the club’s future.
If it appears Schlesinger’s only interest is to close the golf course and build new homes, “then, and only then, would we want to fight him,” Stellar said this week. The new group has contacts with land use attorneys and marketing experts, he said. Early research by the group has revealed that CC&Rs governing the homes around the course require that the golf course remain open until 2020.
Schlesinger, who in recent years has purchased and closed several California golf courses, earlier this year hired a San Diego public relations firm to conduct door-to-door StoneRidge neighborhood surveys, a focus group interview with voters and a citywide telephone survey about the future of the course, which he purchased in 2012. Club members were also interviewed.
The outreach was conducted because any attempt by Schlesinger to build homes would require a citywide vote because of Proposition FF, a ballot measure approved in November 1988 to preserve the low density residential character of the city’s rural residential and open space zones. The StoneRidge Country Club is on land zoned open space-recreational. Schlesinger would also need a General Plan amendment and a zoning change.
Nothing has been submitted to the city by Schlesinger, although he and city representatives have met twice in the past year to discuss Prop. FF.
The city in December 2014 commissioned a consultant to prepare a study of the pros and cons of the city possibly acquiring the 18-hole golf course and associated amenities. The resulting 59-page report, by ProForma Advisors, Ltd., paints a generally guarded and somewhat-pessimistic picture.
Opened in 1962, StoneRidge includes an 18-hole regulation golf course, an unlighted practice range, nine lighted tennis courts, a junior Olympic swimming pool, a clubhouse of approximately 15,000 square feet, a pro shop and related facilities.
Schlesinger listed the 117-acre private country club for sale, but later took it off the market. On Monday, Stellar said he knew for a fact that two separate investment groups made offers to buy the golf course, but received no response from Schlesinger.
Stellar said the country club’s members have done all they can to improve the financial performance of the club by recruiting about 150 new members.
“The members really stepped up” about a year ago,” Stellar said. “We thought that, based upon that, we’d get some improvements to the facilities, to the clubhouse.” For the most part, he said, that has not happened.
