Putt-Putt too? True Life draws line in the sand

If Ahwatukee Lakes residents think a judge can force the restoration of the golf course they once had, they should think again.

So says The True Life Companies in its response to the proposal that two residents’ lawyer submitted last month to Superior Court Judge John R. Hannah Jr.

“This court may not dictate in any permanent injunction it enters what the golf course must look like, what it must consist of or what buildings and facilities it must have,” True Life attorney Chris R. Baniszewski said in a brief filed with the judge last week.

In making the bombshell assertion, Baniszewski resorts to the same 1992 Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions that the lawyer for residents Linda Swain and Eileen Breslin successfully used in blocking the developer from putting homes on the defunct 101-acre course.

That portion of the CC&Rs states that it is the owner of the course – at this point True Life – who has discretion to “modify, alter, relocate, replace, expand, abandon, demolish, cease the use of or rebuild any of the improvements or facilities related to the use of the property for golf courses,” Baniszweski contends.

Noting that the judge already has rejected True Life’s effort to change the CC&Rs, Baniszewski states he “cannot now grant modification to plaintiffs, particularly when the plaintiffs never asked for such a modification, nor do the 1992 Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions give plaintiffs the right to such a modification.”

All that Hannah is legally entitled to do, he adds, “is simply to require TTLC and any future owner of the property to operate a golf course on the property so that it may be used for golfing and golfing practice.”

True Life’s argument represents the latest twist in the long-running legal battle over the future of the 18-hole executive golf course that prior owner Wilson Gee closed in 2013.

Gee, who said he was losing money on the course, sold the site to True Life in 2015 for $9 million, although the developer so far has paid him only $750,000.