Golf Course Has Condo Owner Teed Off

Ann Hall
The Boston Globe - NorthWest Section
Sunday, November 10, 1996

It's pretty easy to take a stand when there's nothing riding on it. It's easy to carry on about crime when you're safe, rail against injustice when no injustice has been done to you. But when your job, your reputation or your home are on the line, how many of us would be willing to risk everything for what we believe is right?

Barry Kort will be headed to Superior Court in a couple of weeks to do just that.

Kort is an unassuming, soft-spoken man, on the short side with reddish hair. He's an engineer and a founder of MicroMuse, which operates a science-educational computer network known as Musenet. Every corner of his home is crammed full of computers, which he repairs and updates in his spare time and then donates to local schools.

Kort lives in the Bedfordshire condominiums in Bedford, a 54-unit complex built on the site of the old Bedford Country Club. The developer who bought the land won a special permit from the town to build the condo units on the property's high ground. On the lower, unbuildable land, he agreed to permanently discontinue the golf course and let it revert to its natural state. He also donated an adjoining parcel of land along the Shawsheen to the town as conservation land. Kort says that in July of 1988 when Kort moved in, the golf course's utilities had been ripped out and the land had gone back to nature.

During the real estate slump a few years later, the developer helped to form a company that perked up unit sales by salvaging four holes of the old golf course. The company continued to pay for the course maintenance until all the units were sold and then walked away, according to Kort. Faced with a decision about what to do with the golf course, the unit owners' association twice voted to maintain it until they came up with a decision. In the last few years, several unit owners decided to take matters into their own hands, raising private money to expand the golf course. The trustees -- predominantly golfers, Kort says -- just rolled the maintenance costs into the budget.

Kort has nothing against golf or this course, although he'd like to see improvements that would benefit everyone in the complex, not just golfers. What bothers him most is that the unit owners are being charged to maintain this golf course despite the fact they were never asked to vote on whether to resurrect or expand it in the first place. He notes that state law says 75 percent of the owners must vote approval on improvements to common areas before the cost can be tacked onto everybody's bill. Kort says there was no such vote.

Disturbed by the trustees' actions, Kort decided to withhold the portion of his condo fees that would have gone to golf course maintenance. In response, the trustees filed suit against him to seize his condominium to recover the fees, and he countersued to block them. If Kort loses the case, he'll lose his home.

The condo trustees are close-mouthed, but for Michael Merrill, their attorney, the issue is simple: the law requires condo owners to pay their monthly fees. If Kort had a problem with the golf course, he should have paid up first and then complained. Everything else is irrelevant.

There's another issue at work here besides the 75 percent vote, however. Kort says that part of the golf course clearly was built on the town conservation land, part of which is wetland bordering the Shawsheen River. The Shawsheen supplies water for Burlington and flows into the Merrimack, a drinking water supply for Andover and several other area towns. Kort and town officials seem to agree that the trustees never applied for a permit to resurrect or add on to the golf course -- or alter the wetlands.

Bedford Planning Director Richard Joly replies that he isn't sure whether a permit would be needed to build a private golf course. He doesn't know if part of the golf course is on conservation land because he never walked the site. It's not his jurisdiction.

The Conservation Commission did make a formal visit to the town conservation area a little more than a year ago, according to Elizabeth Bagdonas, Bedford's conservation administrator. "Part of one of the [golf course] holes is near or in this area, but there were no surveying marks or stakes so it was hard to tell," she said. "We saw no evidence of wetlands violation and we sent a memo to that effect to the town administrator."

Turning to the open space parcel that contains most of the golf course, Bagdonas conceded that the area is under conservation restriction. "But," she added, "no one has been able to find a fully executed, recorded copy of the restriction."

While the town dithers, Kort, the whistle-blower, the man of conscience, may lose his home. Why? "What bothers me most about this is the failure to abide by due process," he said of the trustees' actions. "How do you stand up for your democratic rights when people in positions of power and authority just trample them? How do you stand up and defend your democratic and civil rights in the face of abuse of authority and power? This is about not being intimidated by Beacon Street lawyers and saber-rattling and threats of losing your home."

If Kort cares enough to take the chance of losing his home, shouldn't Bedford at least make certain this golf course isn't encroaching on town wetlands and require some mitigation if it is? And shouldn't the trustees find out what the residents want?


Copyright Ann Hall, 1996. Reprinted with permission. This column may not be reproduced or used in any way without permission of the author.

Ann Hall is a correspondent to the Boston Globe, where her weekly column appears in the Sunday Globe's NorthWest Section.


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