Modesto urged to build affordable housing at the closed Muni Golf Course
The city closed its Modesto Municipal Golf Course about 20 months ago and is in the midst of determining the future of the 54-acre site. But the answer is obvious: Build affordable housing to help ease the city’s crushing housing crisis.
That was the message representatives from the NAACP, Faith in the Valley and the LGBTQ Collaborative delivered to the City Council at its Tuesday meeting. The representatives were short on the details but said those can be worked out. The important thing is the city address the crisis as soon as possible.
Sharon Froba, chairwoman of the NACCP’s housing committee, referenced the California Housing Partnership’s May report, which said there were 15,485 low-income renter households in Stanislaus County without access to affordable housing. And 76% of extremely low-income households spend more than half of their income on housing.
The partnership issued reports for each of California’s 58 counties.
“... They are one catastrophe away from homelessness,” Froba said to the council during public comment, in which the public can talk to their elected officials about matters not on the meeting agenda. “We can’t ignore their needs. Using the Municipal Golf Course, land for low-income affordable housing, would be a blessing for so many struggling families. To do otherwise would be an affront to our citizens. Thank you.”
Froba’s husband, David, told council members that using the golf course for housing would help address the historic wrongs of racially restrictive deeds that prevented people of color from buying homes in certain parts of cities.
The Frobas have researched these racially restrictive housing practices and found they affected half of the Modesto area. David Froba said these practices were in effect nationwide until 1968.
The NAACP’s Modesto-Stanislaus branch, Faith in the Valley Stanislaus and the Modesto-based LGBTQ Collaborative are working together to lobby Modesto for affordable housing at the nine-hole golf course next to John Thurman Field in west Modesto.
A duty to help those in need
“... It is your civic duty to help the city and its people in their time of need,” said Latricia Beasley-Day, a community organizer with Faith in the Valley and an associate pastor at Victory in Praise Church in Modesto.
She ended her remarks to the council by quoting the Bible. “I’m going to leave you this evening with a word from my faith tradition, which is Christianity, found in Proverbs 29, verse 7 (and) from the New Living Translation. It reads: ‘The righteous care about justice for the poor. But the wicked have no such concern.’ I consider the City Council to be righteous. Please consider using what you already possess to build housing for your people.”
City Manager Joe Lopez gave a brief response later in the meeting about the golf course and its future. “We continue to do our due diligence on the proper disposition of that property,” he said. “No final decisions have been made. And we’re still gathering public input at this time.”
Modesto has held two meetings to gather public input. The suggestions have included reopening it to golf, affordable housing, and a mixed-use development of homes, stores and offices. But the most popular option has been using the course for open space and recreation.
More than a dozen residents who live near the golf course have told The Bee they don’t want more housing, especially rental or affordable housing.
They said the golf course, which has an abundance of trees and is surrounded by homes, is one of the few amenities in a part of the city that does not have many. West Modesto is one of the city’s poorest and most diverse communities.
Residents would walk or jog around the course’s perimeter when golfers were on the course. And when the golfers left for the day, residents would have picnics, stroll through Muni’s grounds, and let their children play.
Course still being used
Two homeowners who live across the street from the golf course echoed those comments Thursday.
“I like it as a park, for walking and for the trees,” said 51-year-old Magdalena Navarrete, who lives across the street from Muni at Roselawn and South avenues. She said she walks around the course every day.
She agrees Modesto needs more housing but was firm that the golf course is not the answer. “Not here, not here,” she said when asked about housing at Muni.
A 70-year-old man said he’s lived in his Roselawn Avenue home since 1975, first as a renter and then buying it in the 1980s. The man, who declined to give his name, said his first choice is recreation. “I’d make it into a park,” he said, “so people can enjoy this. It’s a nice view.”
He said building nice single-family homes along where the course fronts Tuolumne Boulevard would be fine as long as the interior of the golf course were parkland. And he’d be OK with a shopping center that had a grocery store and pharmacy.
But he was adamant that Muni should not be used for rental, low-income or affordable housing. “There would be too many problems,” he said.
Modesto had planned to put a fence around the golf course when it closed, to guard against vagrancy, vandalism and other problems. But the city has not fenced the course, in part because it closed Muni earlier than it expected because of the pandemic. The course has not been plagued by the problems the city feared.
Big enough for many uses
The Roselawn homeowner said people who live near Muni have continued to use it as a park during the pandemic. He said he sees people putting down blankets and sitting on them, children playing baseball and other games and even on occasion people hitting golf balls.
The community advocates who are lobbying Modesto to build affordable housing say Muni is big enough for housing, parkland and other amenities. They also say the city has a rare opportunity because it owns the land and can partner with a developer.
“You can have recreation. You can have both,” Steven Cullen with the LGBTQ Collaborative said in an interview. “We can meet the needs of the neighborhood and provide affordable housing.” Cullen, who also spoke at the City Council meeting, said there are many possibilities for the land, including senior housing.
“We can have a happy medium,” Beasley-Day with Faith in the Valley said in an interview. “There is an opportunity to build housing and build up the neighborhood with the amenities that are the essentials.”
Beasley-Day said she and other community advocates will continue to speak at City Council meetings, meet individually with council members and speak with the residents who live near the golf course.
Public meeting in early 2022?
The City Council decided in January 2020 to close the Modesto Municipal Golf Course, where generations had learned to play the game since it opened in the 1930s. The city had determined it could not afford to have three golf courses. The city has two 18-hole courses, Dryden and Creekside, which remain open.
Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods Director Laurie Smith said in an interview that her staff continues to analyze the information from the two public meetings and explore potential reuses of the golf course. She said she expects parks and recreation will have a report for the city manager to review by the end of the year.
The pandemic has delayed the city’s work. The city held the first public meeting in March 2020 and the second one in October.
Smith said she expects Modesto will hold another public meeting in early 2022 to go over the results of the report and solicit more comments. Smith said after that she expects city staff will present what it has learned at a council committee meeting before asking the full City Council for direction on the next steps.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
