Plan to expand GVR to resort, condos draws opposition

Green Valley Recreation members showed up in force last week to voice their opposition to a proposal to allow Canoa Ranch Resort to join GVR and giving Lodges condominium owners the option of joining.

More than 80 people, mostly Canoa Ranch residents, attended the heated GVR Board Affair and Bylaws Committee meeting. Many oppose the idea because it would lead to overcrowding of facilities and bring short-term residents and visitors into GVR who may not have the same respect for facilities as homeowners.

The committee passed a motion to put the annexation of the Canoa Ranch Resort/Canoa Ranch Lodges, 5775 S. Camino Del Sol, on the February ballot, which the board will vote to approve at the Nov. 24 meeting.

One stipulation of the motion requires that the property be age-restricted according to the HUD agreement, which means more than 80 percent of residents be at least 55.

If the issue is put on the ballot and passes, 40 condo units with individual owners would be given the option of joining GVR, and about 50 units operated like a hotel would have GVR membership, according to Fairfield Homes developer David Williamson. Twenty to 30 condos yet to be built would be deeded into GVR, he said.

Currently, six Lodges condo owners are asking to join GVR but the rest have not been polled.

Though the resort has its own pool and fitness room, Williamson said some condo owners want to join GVR for social reasons, citing one woman who wants to join GVR’s Bridge Club.

Committee President Bob Barry said he has received numerous e-mails from members against the annexation. Most of them dealt with concern over “short-term people accessing our facilities and trashing them,” he said.

Fairfield consultant Frank Thomson told members in attendance that the company has GVR’s best interest in mind.

“We’re still developing the balance of Canoa Ranch. It is in our interest that GVR is healthy and functional,” he said. “We want facilities that are functional, not ones that are overburdened.”

Thomson argued that guests of the resort, which functions partly as a hotel, would not be coming specifically to use GVR facilities but to visit family or attend corporate conferences for local companies like Caterpillar Inc. Another committee member pointed out that the Inn at San Ignacio is a member of GVR and provides guest passes to patrons, and said GVR has not had trouble with patrons in the past.

But Marcia White, a fitness monitor at the Canoa Ranch Recreation Center, told the committee that monitors are concerned that hotel guests would be less likely to accept instruction on proper usage of exercise equipment and could become confrontational. She added that vacationers busy with golf and other activities during the day would be more likely to use facilities at night, when there are fewer monitors on duty.

Another point of contention for members: Williamson had asked GVR in 2005 to remove the property from GVR and effectively prevent condo owners from entering into the organization. In January, he requested that the property be brought back into GVR because the facilities would be an incentive for buyers.

Canoa Ranch resident Ed Wolf called Fairfield “johnny-come-latelies who now want to use GVR as a selling point.”

Referring to the condominium owners, “these people can opt out, but there’s not a single person here who can opt out, and that’s not fair.”

But member Mark Haskoe asked Canoa Ranch residents to look at the issue from a practical standpoint. He said most vacationers are busy visiting family and sightseeing and would have little time to spend in a recreation center. He also said the new members would have little impact on the organization, which claims a membership base of more than 12,500 households.

“What will it do, realistically, to the system? Is it worth all this discussion?”

Other members said with more than 1,100 homes going into Canoa Ranch South in the next few years, the small annexation would add up in the long run and would contribute to serious overcrowding at the newly-completed rec center.

Williamson said he would be “willing to consider” building another rec center for Canoa South.

“The Canoa Ranch Recreation Center belongs to everyone in GVR,” said Board President and committee member Altie Metcalf. “That’s why I think it should go on the ballot for everyone to vote on.”

jrichardson@gvnews.com | 547-9726