Plan to Close Franklin Canyon Golf Course, Build RV Resort Continues to Take Shape, but Questions Remain
Developer has until Feb. 8, 2025, to begin site work or entitlements for project will expire; closing date for popular golf course remains unknown as some hold out hope that it may be spared
Editor’s note: Last month’s article by freelance writer Tom Lochner about the planned closing of nearby Franklin Canyon Golf Course has become the most read posting ever by Martinez News and Views, with close to 3,000 page views. Because of the significant interest in the topic, we are providing the following update thanks to the financial support of paid subscribers and other donors to the newsletter. It is being made available in full to paid subscribers only, with an abbreviated version also available to free subscribers. To purchase a paid subscription for $5 a month or $50 annually and support more local journalism like this, click the subscribe button below or email craig.lazzeretti@gmail.com for other ways to donate.
As the closing date of the Franklin Canyon Golf Course, originally slated for the end of May, recedes into fall at earliest, its owner as well as Hercules city officials say the project to convert it into a luxury RV resort is still on track. But some people still hope that the course, which attracts golfers from all over Contra Costa County and beyond, will stay open.
The RV resort project entitlements are set to expire on Feb. 8, 2025, following a one-year administrative extension pursuant to one of its conditions of approval, Hercules Community Development Director Timothy Rood said via email on May 22. "If site grading or relocation of on-site utilities has not commenced by that time, the approvals shall expire." He added, "The City Council would need to approve any extension beyond the current expiration date."
The golf course, located along Highway 4 a few miles west of Martinez, had been scheduled to hold its last day of golfing on May 29. But on May 1, Franklin Canyon golf General Manager Adam Eisner announced on Facebook that the course will welcome golfers throughout the summer.
Even so, Tom Hix, managing member of project applicant Madison MRH-Franklin 1, LLC, said in an email on May 7: "The project is going through the Final Map stage with the City with the hopes of starting construction mid-to-late summer this year.”
Rood said via email: "In addition to the final map, demolition, grading and building permits will all be required." He added, "There are no applications on file for any of the above permits."
That had not changed as of June 5. "Approval times for post-entitlement permits vary depending on type, scale and complexity," Rood added.
On June 5, Hix said in an email: "The project is moving forward, and we are working through engineering issues with East Bay MUD. We will have our plans in soon. We temporarily extended the golf operations while we are completing plans."
Hix did not address whether grading and other required work will begin by Feb. 8, 2025, when the project entitlements expire.
Some of the region's unhappy golfers say they only became aware of the planned closing recently, sometimes by word-of-mouth, after the course announced it on its Facebook page at the end of March. Some said they knew an RV resort was on the horizon but thought until very recently that it was supposed to occupy only half the course, with the other half remaining for golf.
That, in fact, was the original plan introduced to the city in 2019.
"No permits should be approved to develop on this site until a revised plan similar to the original is submitted," El Sobrante entrepreneur and frequent Franklin Canyon golfer Hunter McCoy said to the Hercules City Council on May 14 during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. Measure M — a 2004 voter-approved initiative, also known as the Protect Franklin Canyon Area Initiative, which serves as the General Plan and zoning regulation for the area that includes the golf course — was designed to keep the space open for community use rather than "hoard" it for large RVs, McCoy continued.
"It's robbing the entire Hercules and East Bay community," McCoy said of the project. "Changing a golf course into a trailer park should have gone on the ballot. …. Approving the complete destruction of such a massive property that serves the public should have been voted on by the people."
Current Hercules Mayor Dan Romero, the only member of the City Council to vote no when the project came before it for approval on Feb. 8, 2022, said in an email last week: "As far as Hercules notifying the public about the closure of Franklin Canyon, the city has no authority over the golf course operations, which is a private business.
"The owner of the golf course has concerns with the cost of water and maintenance which have brought him to having to discuss closure of the golf course," Romero added. "The RV resort construction is based on economics, and currently the cost of construction loans will dictate if the RV resort will be built in the future."
There were, over the years, some public forums to discuss the plan, starting with a "Community Meeting" at the Hercules Public Library on Aug. 28, 2018, and a "Neighborhood Meeting" at the golf course on Sept. 12, 2018, according to flyers from the time, which listed Hix as contact; Hix's organization acquired the golf course in 2017.
Those flyers, however, show a map of the golf course with a "Proposed Development Area" restricted to the front nine holes. That initial plan called for an RV resort with 160 RV spaces alongside a nine-hole golf course (the back nine of the current 18-hole course).
City records also reference three public hearings before the Hercules Planning Commission in 2021 and a fourth in January 2022, as well as one before the Hercules City Council in October 2021 and another in February 2022.
But by the time of those public hearings, the initial plan had morphed into the current plan for an RV resort with no golf course. The current plan calls for deeding the 70 acres that include the back nine to the Martinez-based John Muir Land Trust for hiking and other outdoor activities, and another five acres for a community garden, as well as providing 50 parking spaces for access by the general public to the land trust's adjacent Fernandez Ranch/Franklin Canyon open space area.
The initial plan that called for "the redevelopment of the existing 18-hole Franklin Canyon Golf Course into a nine-hole golf course and recreational vehicle resort" was introduced to the city in an April 1, 2019, "Application for Zoning Clearance Development Permit, Franklin Canyon RV Resort and Golf Course Project."
On June 26, 2019, the city granted the zoning clearance administratively, through its Planning Division, having "officially determined that the proposed project’s uses are similar to commercial uses listed in Measure M," and therefore allowed. Romero has said the matter should have gone before the City Council.
The nine-hole golf course was eliminated in a June 22, 2020, application for design review, lot line adjustment and environmental review.
The steps cited above are referenced on the city's "Franklin Canyon RV Resort" page at the following link:
Franklin Canyon Golf Course
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