It’s a dilapidated, boarded up, graffiti ridden mess of a building and site that is regularly patrolled by police.
Now, after more than a decade of trying to come up with a plan to make best use of the battered 155-acre Country Club of Woodbridge property, First Selectman Mica Cardozo believes they’ve found a kind of sweet spot through a professional evaluation.
“It includes something for everyone,” Cardozo said.
Everybody doesn’t get all they want, but everybody gets something, he said.
The town bought the property in 2009 and it has been the subject of controversy since because residents who must vote on any plan have differing visions. Some want it to stay all nature, others want housing and some, a mix.
There is now an adjoining “park” with walking trails, lush or overgrown, in vegetation, paths and wildlife, including a reported bear and coyote sighting. The site is very close to New Haven and Route 15, but also is on a quiet, well-established residential street of large lots.
A conceptual plan by Cooper Robertson that took a year of research and got input from Woodbridge stakeholders has recommended a scenario that includes some age-restricted housing, some mostly market value residential units, with an affordable housing component, some hospitality business and lots and lots of active and passive recreation with trails, ponds, woods and forest.
The conceptual plan is probably around a year away from a vote and doesn’t include specifics including what developer or developers they would partner with for any project.
“We took a different approach,” Cardozo said. “In the past anything has been reactionary,” meaning developers came to the town first making a proposal. In this new approach, the town has a vision.
“It brings the best overall return,” he said, noting the town needs some income from the property.
Change in the mostly residential, bedroom community does not come easy; a separate but nearby housing plan is the subject of intense controversy.
The country club site plan suggests 93 acres of multi-use walking trails with meadows, woods, ponds and 23 acres of more densely forested areas with trails. The trails could be designed to allow a person to hike all the way to Route 63, he said.
Cardozo said under the plan seven acres on Ansonia Road would be for 32 age-restricted housing units, as there is a dire need for people who live in Woodbridge and want to downsize.
“We have a real gap here.” he said. “Most seniors when facing downsizing have to move out of town.”
The plan also calls for market value residential and retail on 18 acres near where the country club building now stands. But some units would be set aside as affordable housing.
Cardozo also said the area could include assisted living.
In that area would be a brewery, hotel or likely some kind of other type of hospitality business, he said.
Cardozo said he pictures that area as a “neighborhood” or “community.”
On that 18 acres some commercial possible a brewery, a hotel, restaurant or something in the hospitality realm.
A park with a “ceremonial entrance” near the country club would also be included and have an historic trail, pavilion and more traditional park items.
Cardozo said another possible component is leasing agricultural land to a farmer. The site was a farm prior to the country club.
Cardozo said he’s committed to turning the property into an asset. By using 25 percent of it for development the town can bring in $1.2 million to $1.9 million per year, he said.
Cardozo said he’s “excited” about a conceptual plan because it can be done “step by step” and that makes it easier.
The country club was once the place of fancy weddings, banquets, golf tournaments and other events of the elite who belonged to the members-only club.
The pool is closed and filled with sand, the golf course, still with signs of the putters who once played there, is no more.
“What to do with the property?” is a question Woodbridge has been asking for more than 10 years.
Cardozo said in the analysis by Cooper Robertson data and facts were used to come up with options for the site.
At more than 150 acres it’s one of the largest pieces of property in town and, in a rarity for Woodbridge, has sewers and town water that make it suitable for multi-housing development.
“The way I’ve described it I see it as developing a new neighborhood,” Cardozo said.” Step by step you create a space that’s vibrant.”
The town purchased the property on Woodfield Road — a golf course, pool and clubhouse — for $7 million in 2009 when the owners went bankrupt. The sight is a minute or two by car from the New Haven city line.
In making the purchase, the town’s intent was to keep the site from being developed. Since then, a golf course has failed financially and the pool, kept open longer than the now dilapidated building, has closed.
Regarding the local environment, the plan notes, “the site includes areas of steep slope, dense forest, fairways becoming meadows, water courses and ponds, derelict structures and deteriorating cart paths.”
The open areas of the site “offer an opportunity, whether through public investment or volunteer efforts, to steward the transformation of the former golf course into a healthy native landscape,” according to the report.
Further, a review was done of existing conditions on the site, and, with reports by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Audubon CT, and the Southwest Conservation District, it was found that much of the property “is an early successional habitat; this habitat is ideal for birds and pollinators,” the report notes.
“A large variety of birds will use the regenerating oak, ash, white pines, and cedars to nest. Currently, however, there is a lack of understory and midstory level plants due to deer, and there are significant areas of the site overtaken by invasive plants,” it notes.