Restore Eaglemont saga continues

To recap the Eaglemont saga from last month: Two homeowner couples, with the backing of over one hundred other residents, filed a suit against Beacon Hill Ministries, the current owner of the property, claiming that they are required to reactivate the golf course because the original zoning for the community included the golf course.

Beacon Hill Ministries argued that their claim is about zoning and can’t be extended to the current ownership of the property.

The judge said that while she granted that it was equitable for the homeowners to require the current owner to maintain the course, that it was not sufficient to overcome the inequity she found toward the owner of the property if the owner was required to spend the large amount of capital to get the course and property restored and operating. She quoted an amount taken from testimony that it could take $800,000 or more to restore the course, but requiring that of an owner she deemed unfair. A big setback for the home owners.

It appears that Beacon Hill Ministries borrowed $3 million from Capital Preservation/Romano Capital, a Vancouver, Wash. company in order to purchase the property and failed to repay the loan. So Romano foreclosed and scheduled an auction for the week following the court date. Romano set a minimum bid of $3.385 million would be required for anyone to purchase the property. The auction was canceled at the last minute and rescheduled for March 1st.

The judge noted that a strong potential buyer testified and said he would bid on it. But, that ignores the fact that it is highly unlikely that this or any buyer would pay anything like the minimum bid set by the lender.  Beacon Hill could continue to own it until a successful auction. This means that the property could continue to see further deterioration.

Inside Golf will follow this saga as it unfolds and will have more next month.