Mount Compass Golf Course owner claims zoning change could ‘wipe out’ his business, as Planning Minister intervenes

The owner of a popular golf course estate south of Adelaide fears his business faces financial ruin after the site was unexpectedly rezoned – but there is hope for a solution.

Mount Compass Golf Course is a popular day-trip destination for golfers from around Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula. Picture: Mount Compass Golf Course Facebook page

A businessman says the rezoning of a popular golf course he plans to develop has sparked a “horrendous” drop in land value that threatens to “wipe out” his company.

The new zoning of the Mount Compass Golf Course resulted in a “significant drop in development potential”, Capitoline Property managing director Stephen Connor has told the state’s Environment, Resources and Development (ERD) Committee.

The company is creating allotments for homes on the edge of the popular course south of Adelaide, which came in at number two in our recent reader poll of SA’s best golf courses.

But under the state’s new planning code, the land’s zoning has been changed from “residential” to “rural, recreation and neighbourhood”.

“The destruction of value is horrendous and, if it’s not sorted out, basically our business is going to get wiped out,” Mr Connor told the committee.

He said the 70ha site had been zoned residential for about 20 years.

Since buying the land five years ago, Capitoline Property has received approval to create 63 residential allotments on the golf course’s edge.

More than 20 are already completed, with others underway. That’s on top of about 200 allotments created by a previous owner.

Mount Compass golf course and some of its adjoining houses. Picture: Mount Compass Golf Course Facebook page

Attorney-General and Planning Minister Vickie Chapman. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

Mr Connor said to his “horror”, he discovered in February that an Alexandrina Council suggestion to rezone some of the land as recreation and rural had been adopted.

He said his business employed nine full-time staff and another eight casuals, whose jobs were now at stake.

“If the zoning is not changed, I think we are sitting at about 10 per cent of the value of the land as it was,” he said.

“I will have a bank loan called in and I will have to service that by selling other assets. We will shut the golf course because I don’t have capacity to raise funds to reinvest in the golf course.”

The ERD committee this week wrote to Planning Minister Vickie Chapman suggesting the land be rezoned “golf course estate”.

A state government spokeswoman said Ms Chapman had already last month requested the State Planning Commission initiate an amendment to rezone the land under that title.

Alexandrina Council’s strategic development manager Sally Roberts said the council’s suggestion for the area to be zoned rural and recreation was designed to uphold its previous policy.

That saw the area zoned as residential but with a “concept plan” that set out where residential development should happen and where the golf course should be.

“When the first code came out the whole site was general neighbourhood, which meant that the golf course itself was going to be able to have housing all over it, which was never the intent of the policy,” Ms Roberts said.

“When the … consultation happened we said the best outcome at the moment is for the golf course to be in a recreation zone and the residential area be in a neighbourhood zone.”

Ms Roberts said it was unclear at this stage exactly what a new “golf course estate” zone would mean for the area.