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Half a golf course to keep community whole

By G.D. Maxwell Regular readers of Pique often refer to Bob Barnett as the Voice of Reason.

By G.D. Maxwell

Regular readers of Pique often refer to Bob Barnett as the Voice of Reason. They call him that because his page 4 editorial is invariably well-balanced, even-handed, chock full of salient facts, historically grounded, insightful and a meaningful catalyst often sparking further enlightened debate.

Those same readers often refer to me as simply the Voice. I’m not sure why.

Playing bookend to Bob’s thoughtful editorials is a lot like living in the shadow of a smarter, better-mannered brother. People are always saying, "Why can’t you be more like him?" It is, in a word, trying.

So I was overjoyed recently when I began to notice a fissure in Bob’s trademark reasonableness. A tiny undertone of radical – yes, almost reckless – thought creeping into his writing. Oh, he’s a long way from spending quiet evenings gently tamping black powder into crudely made pipebombs but there is no denying the trend.

How else would you explain his idea to use the cover of darkness, caused by a power failure, to visit vandalistic terror on houses and neighbourhoods not actively supporting affordable housing?

What’s that? Don’t remember that editorial? Well, it was August 29 th , shortly after the lights went out for 50 million folks back east. Referring to a New York Times story about how there hadn’t been much looting during that city’s power outage, at least not compared to the free-for-all rioting enjoyed by one and all during the blackout of 1977, he wrote: "...the main difference was the massive effort begun 20 years ago to rebuild neighbourhoods, primarily through affordable housing.... turning record numbers of New Yorkers into homeowners with a vested interest in keeping their areas safe."

While he acknowledged the unlikelihood of looters and arsonists in Whistler – at least as long as those losers from Surrey stay in their own hood – he held New York’s effort out as an "...example of what creating opportunities for people to live in decent housing can do for neighbourhoods and communities."

Okay, now that I read it more carefully, maybe Bob wasn’t really advocating trashing suiteless homes and exclusive neighbourhoods. Maybe making a list of those targets and having a plan ready was just an idea I read into his carefully weighed, even-handed words. But that may have been what he meant... on some subliminal level. Or maybe I just skimmed. Whatever.

But clearly, when he supported converting a golf course into affordable housing, well, if that ain’t radical, buy me a suit and send me back out in the workforce mama. I mean, hey, we’re all in favour of social housing, but give up a golf course? Get real.

I can hear the objections now. "We need three golf courses. It’s vital to our world classiness!"

I can buy that. On the other hand, maybe this is one of those weird mutations where less really is more. I mean, what’s the most scarce commodity in today’s hurly-burly lifestyle? Time, right? I read all these stories about harried workerbees and CEOs who just can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to cram all the things they want to do into the time they have to do them.

Let’s face it, golf, for all its wonderful attributes, isn’t one of those games a busy boomer can rush through. It takes time. It takes finesse. It takes concentration. Why, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out there are a lot of golfers out there who just can’t find time to play 18 holes. And it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if some of them choose not playing at all on days when their busy schedules don’t have a convenient, leisurely 18-hole hole.

But what if they had a crack at playing a challenging, picturesque, 9-hole course? Wow, this could be a whole overlooked market niche, whatever those are. And we might actually come out pretty close to where we are now, revenuewise, given golf courses tend to charge a whole lot more than 50 per cent of the cost of playing 18 holes for the privilege of screwing up their timetable by letting time-starved duffers only play nine.

If we can put a positive marketing spin on losing half a golf course to golfers – which, let’s face it, are a secondary market – might there not be a spin to be spun among our other target markets?

Well, imagine this. Suppose word gets out – and isn’t that why we have Tourism Whistler? To get word out? – that Whistler, this great four-season resort in kinder, gentler Canada, is so committed to maintaining and enhancing the social fabric of its community, is so cognizant of the vital contribution a vibrant resident population makes to delivering a superior guest experience, is so determined to walk the talk, that they’ve actually swapped half a golf course for employee housing.

What would people think?

Of course, this is just a pipedream. Radical shit like this never really happens. Oh, it’ll get talked about a bit. People at muni hall will hope it just dies down and gets forgotten while they beaver away on building Whistler South in the Callaghan. Someone will point out that even though it’s highly likely a new golf course will be built in the Callaghan – since that’s what Premier Tippler promised the native Canadian first nations peoples – it’s just not the same as having a golf course right in the middle of town. Much easier to have drones commute than golfers, don’cha know.

And clearly any golf courses that might be built down at Garibaldi north of Squamish are irrelevant to a discussion of Whistler golf courses.

Ditto the argument that these over-fertilized chunks of land are only used five months a year... assuming good weather.

And if all that momentum isn’t enough to bury this idea, surely the howl and cry of the neighbours on the hill will point to a battle that just isn’t worth fighting.

I guess I have a higher opinion of the folks on Blueberry. They haven’t seen their property values plummet since they lost the gate and chances are good something below the sightline wouldn’t get ’em all that riled up. If it does, I’d feel compelled to personally lead a Guinness book of records moon-in pointed in their direction but I’m sure they’ll be supportive. I mean, who really wants to look out their window at golfers?

Obviously there are lots of good reasons for not considering such a harebrained scheme. And at least a few good reasons to just maybe consider it.

Still, when you’ve got the Voice of Reason on your side, it just makes you wonder whether maybe this is an even better idea than you thought, doesn’t it?