No new greens for Ponderosa golf course but some green for Peachland’s coffers

It’s not what Peachland residents who bought property in The Trails development had in mind. They thought they’d be walking a few steps to the newly developed golf course to play a round.

But Romspen, the Toronto-based real estate investment group that owns the property, has long been promising to develop the golf course with a residential community around it, without moving forward with any aspect of the project.

The November 2025 requirement that the golf course be completed has passed. The Peachland Post tried to get insight into why they haven’t started it, or when they might, but Romspen isn’t saying. Repeated requests for interviews with company representatives last week were ignored.

Now the delay is hitting Romspen where it hurts. The District of Peachland has been billing the company an agreed-upon $100,000 every month since late last year, said the district’s Director of Planning Darin Schaal.

“The district is simply enforcing the terms of an agreement that stipulates a penalty of $100,000 for each 30-day period that the golf course construction is incomplete beyond the November 1, 2025 deadline,” said Schaal, noting that the agreement stipulates an “upset limit” of one million dollars.

A stalled project, angry residents, and a developer gone publicly silent but paying up to a million dollars in penalties. How did Peachland get here? The original proposal was an 18-hole golf course, hotel, vineyards and homes for 4,100 residents. Construction began in 2012, but other than 69 homes in the project known as The Trails, nothing else happened. Romspen took over a portion of the land and negotiated a new development agreement covenant with the district. They requested permission to build 445 homes; the District of Peachland required that Romspen build a nine-hole golf course and a road between Somerset and Ponderosa.

Nothing since then, according to Geoff Trafford, who lives in The Trails development. “There was some cleanup work and a temporary roadway graded at the south end of the property towards Somerset, but it’s really just preliminary work that was done there. They cleaned up some of the garbage that was on the golf course on the south side of Ponderosa. They didn’t clean up anything on the north side of Ponderosa. Nothing further has been done as far as I know,” said Trafford.

Schaal said the development agreement covenant requires landscaping issues at The Trails to be addressed before any further approvals. “There may still be a few remaining landscaping issues that will need to be addressed in the spring, but there has definitely been some progress,” he said. Schaal said Romspen has taken early steps on the required Somerset-Ponderosa Road connection, submitting a development application late last year. The district gave the company a response letter last week, and Romspen needs to address items noted in the letter before the project advances to design and construction. Schaal said he hopes the road can be built this year.

Does Romspen moving forward with the road indicate their intent to start building the golf course? Again, Romspen didn’t respond to requests for information. Schaal said he recognizes the community’s frustration over the lack of progress, but the district can’t control what developers do. “The community has been promised this golf course for years and years and little to nothing has happened, so I hear that same frustration from residents all the time. We review development applications and provide development approvals but we don’t construct the infrastructure and we don’t build the development. The private sector and the developers do that, so we just simply work to set ‘parameters of the development if they decide to go forward. We want to help and facilitate development but there’s only so much we can do and a lot of it is based on economic cycles and market conditions,” Schaal said in a phone interview.

Trafford said he believes the district’s management of the project has been “really poor”. The district needs to be flexible on the development covenant and may be playing politics with the project to cater to people who oppose the development, he said. “Is it a political decision that they’re making, where they say, ‘We’re the big tough district and if they don’t live up to the absolute letter of the covenant, we’re not gonna let this go through and that’ll show our community that were t’ough guys? Whereas, you know, maybe there’s some things that should be looked at and talked about that would allow this project to go forward in a way that would suit Romspen and the district and the community and I don’t think that’s happening,” he said.

Schaal said the district does all it can to facilitate and make projects work. An example, he said, was the new development agreement covenant for Ponderosa that took three years of negotiation. “I think it shows our willingness to work with developers. If somethings not working, let’s find a way to make it work. We don’t throw up obstacles,” he said.

Trafford said he and as many as ten of his neighbours are looking for a way to develop the golf course separately from the real estate development. Their idea is to ask the district to contribute the penalties paid by Romspen and raise the rest of the money through community bonds. Romspen would be asked to lease the golf course land separately to the district, which would build and operate the course.

“It’s an interesting idea,” Schaal said. And while some municipalities do operate golf courses, he’s unaware of any local governments undertaking a project to build one. “If it’s one of those kind of things, like, ‘hey, we’re thinking outside the box and everyone wants to achieve the same objective,’ I love that. I don’t know if you have the resources to do anything like that but it’s interesting.”

— This article was originally published by the Peachland Post