ORANGE : Decision Delayed on Golf Course Lighting

After a two-hour public hearing, the City Council voted 3 to 2 this week to postpone until after the Nov. 6 election a decision on whether to allow night lighting at Ridgeline Golf Course in Orange Park Acres.

Supporters of night lighting packed the council chambers wearing bulb-shaped decals that read “Lights Please!” They grumbled that council members running for reelection were afraid to vote.

But Councilwoman Joanne Coontz told the crowd of more than 200 that the council needed more time to consider safety, traffic and other concerns that have divided the exclusive semi-rural neighborhood.

Mayor Don E. Smith and Councilman William G. Steiner opposed the project.

“I think we had a very fair hearing and a lot of public input and enough input to make a fair decision,” Smith said.

The Planning Commission rejected the project in June. Some residents of Orange Park Acres have been fighting since April to oppose installation of night lights at the nine-hole course in the heart of their community.

They argue that the lights will lead to further commercialization and worry that extended hours would attract more traffic to an already dangerous curve along Meads Avenue at Handy Creek.

But David Freimann, Ridgeline owner, says the 25-year-old course needs night golf to survive. Installing 40 lights will allow the course to “have daylight savings time for our business year-round,” Freimann said. Revenue would increase more than $75,000 each year, he said.

“It makes enough economic sense for me to do what everyone in the state is screaming to do: Keep open recreational space,” Freimann said. “It’s the only place like it for miles and miles and miles.”

Herbert Bieber, president of Bieber Lighting, told the council that the lights for the course are specially designed not to spill into adjacent areas.

Council members encouraged residents to ask the County Board of Supervisors for money to improve safety conditions of the road near the entrance to the golf course.

The council will consider the issue again at the Nov. 13 meeting.