Mosholu Golf Course Under New
Management By JORDAN MOSS
"I can't imagine someone would sign a 20-year agreement with the possibility of the city putting a factory there," said Paul Sawyer, executive director of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, referring to the plant that would rise 30 feet above the current grade of the park. "It would seem like a tremendous amount of time invested and then just lost. It doesn't seem like it would be a smart business move." Jay Mottola, executive director of the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation, agrees. "Our contractual agreement with the city and the concessionaire addresses that issue," Mottola said. "Our obligation to pay the city and the concessionaire would end," if construction for the plant or any of its components began at the site. Still, Mottola is fairly confident canceling the deal won't be necessary. "Hopefully, [our plans] would make it even more difficult for anyone to take over parkland that is being creatively utilized for a water filtration plant," Mottola said. That creative use includes starting a golf program for city kids under the auspices of the First Tee Program. MGA, based in Elmsford, NY, has two objectives, Mottola said - "to provide a good facility for public golfers but also to use facilities on off-peak hours to teach young people how to play golf." The accessible location makes it ideal for attracting kids from surrounding schools and community organizations, Mottola said. City officials, however, are required by the federal government to build the filtration plant for the Croton water system, and they say they have not ruled out Mosholu, though getting approval from the state legislature is considered by most observers to be unlikely at best. The city is currently in court with a federal magistrate, who is charged with making sure the city is making a good faith effort to find a new location for the facility. Local activists believe two industrial sites in Westchester are far more suitable than a public park or anywhere else in the Bronx. But officials of the city's Department of Environmental Protection counter that at least a portion of the plant, specifically a clearwell and pumping station, will have to be built in the borough, perhaps even at the Jerome Park Reservoir. However, some of the activists insist those components are not required under federal law. Meanwhile, MGA is happily making improvements to the golf course, and preparing for a future they hope will be uninterrupted by a filtration plant.
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After the state's highest
court ruled last February that New York City couldn't build a filtration
plant at Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park without legislative
approval, opponents of the project breathed a sigh of relief. And now that
the nonprofit Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation (MGA) is taking
over the concessionaire's license from Fairway Management, local activists
and park advocates feel it is even more unlikely the city will choose to
site the plant there.