Residents fear golf net
will be eyesore
Neighbors are teed off about Waialae Country Club's plans for golf course driving range improvements that include 60-foot-high netting on coconut trees, calling it an eyesore.
The residents also told the City Council Zoning Committee that they think the country club isn't saying whether it will use steel or wooden poles to hold up the nets in the future.
The Zoning Committee approved a special management area use permit and a shoreline setback variance for the project. The Council takes up the permit and variance applications on May 12. The club needs to obtain an additional variance in the future to allow the nets to be placed at 60 feet instead of the current 40 feet.
"Give us a letter that confirms that this is not a sneaky ploy to get the poles and heights of the nets (to) other than what you are asking for now," said Ira Helfer, who lives in the adjacent Waialae Golf Course subdivision.
But representatives of the country club say that nets on trees are what are in the plans before the Council.
"It's a question of whether there's a hidden agenda here to have steel poles installed some time in the future, and about all we can say to that is the club does not intend to put in steel poles, as far as I know," Cedric Choi, a member of the board of directors, told the Zoning Committee.
The nets are designed to protect golfers along the 18th fairway from balls hit from the driving range, Choi said.
The 40-foot-high nets capture about 66 percent of the balls and the country club hopes the taller nets will capture more balls, he said.
Choi told the committee that original plans called for steel poles to hold up the nets, but that the club has changed it plans to address community concerns by withdrawing use of poles to make the project more aesthetically pleasing.
One of the conditions of the permit will be that the country club will be allowed to use only trees to suspend the netting from, said Barbara Moon of the Department of Planning and Permitting.