Doggett Circle seniors will have to wait a little longer for the problem of golf balls sailing or bouncing over from the driving range next door to be resolved.
Judge Paul Troy rebuffed the Dedham Housing Authority’s request to shut down McGolf until new driving bay dividers are put in place, deciding to give the longstanding golf complex on Bridge Street another month to make changes.
“Your suit has awakened the defendant,” Troy told the Housing Authority’s attorney, Edward Kendall, as civil court proceedings got under way in Dedham Housing Authority vs. McGolf last week.
But the judge responded to the argument put forth by McGolf’s attorney, Philip Tracy Jr., who argued that 43 people could be put out of work if McGolf were shut down, and that doing so would cause “irreparable harm” to his clients, the McInerneys, the owners. They attended the hearing.
“I have to consider the harm to the employees. The solution seems to be imminent,” Troy said.
As the hearing began on the afternoon of Thursday, Kendall placed a plastic bag of a dozen balls on the table. They audibly bounced as they came to a rest. Kendall said resident Tom Kirschner had found the balls in just the few weeks since the court complaint was filed, on Aug. 6.
The attorney said the frequent and recurring entry of the golf balls represents a continuing trespass onto the Doggett Circle property. When the Zoning Board of Appeals granted Bill McInerney a special permit to expand his business in 1981, it stipulated that he should pay to build a fence “that will be sufficient to screen errant golf shots from coming onto the property of the Dedham Housing Authority adjacent to petitioner’s property.” (See www.WickedLocalDedham.com for that document and more from this case.)
“The residents are scared to go out in the corner of their property, when they’re outside, and enjoy the sun,” Kendall said, arguing that the only action to take was to move forward with his preliminary injunction. He raised the possibility of a resident being scared and having a heart attack, and said the Housing Authority seeks to protect the physical safety of residents.
The judge agreed that the residents must be protected.
“It has been a long problem, and I think the residents have been very patient about it,” he said.
A driving range has been on the site since 1954, and Doggett Circle, an 80-unit housing complex, opened next door in 1969, though seniors moved in much later. McInerney bought the driving range in 1980 and reopened it as McGolf.
Doggett Circle seniors will have to wait a little longer for the problem of golf balls sailing or bouncing over from the driving range next door to be resolved.
Judge Paul Troy rebuffed the Dedham Housing Authority’s request to shut down McGolf until new driving bay dividers are put in place, deciding to give the longstanding golf complex on Bridge Street another month to make changes.
“Your suit has awakened the defendant,” Troy told the Housing Authority’s attorney, Edward Kendall, as civil court proceedings got under way in Dedham Housing Authority vs. McGolf last week.
But the judge responded to the argument put forth by McGolf’s attorney, Philip Tracy Jr., who argued that 43 people could be put out of work if McGolf were shut down, and that doing so would cause “irreparable harm” to his clients, the McInerneys, the owners. They attended the hearing.
“I have to consider the harm to the employees. The solution seems to be imminent,” Troy said.
As the hearing began on the afternoon of Thursday, Kendall placed a plastic bag of a dozen balls on the table. They audibly bounced as they came to a rest. Kendall said resident Tom Kirschner had found the balls in just the few weeks since the court complaint was filed, on Aug. 6.
The attorney said the frequent and recurring entry of the golf balls represents a continuing trespass onto the Doggett Circle property. When the Zoning Board of Appeals granted Bill McInerney a special permit to expand his business in 1981, it stipulated that he should pay to build a fence “that will be sufficient to screen errant golf shots from coming onto the property of the Dedham Housing Authority adjacent to petitioner’s property.” (See www.WickedLocalDedham.com for that document and more from this case.)
“The residents are scared to go out in the corner of their property, when they’re outside, and enjoy the sun,” Kendall said, arguing that the only action to take was to move forward with his preliminary injunction. He raised the possibility of a resident being scared and having a heart attack, and said the Housing Authority seeks to protect the physical safety of residents.
The judge agreed that the residents must be protected.
“It has been a long problem, and I think the residents have been very patient about it,” he said.
A driving range has been on the site since 1954, and Doggett Circle, an 80-unit housing complex, opened next door in 1969, though seniors moved in much later. McInerney bought the driving range in 1980 and reopened it as McGolf.
In an affidavit, McInerney said that for nearly 30 years, McGolf’s 50-foot net atop an 8-foot chain link fence “sufficiently prevented balls from entering onto neighboring property.” But in the last two to three years, the net became torn because of tree growth on both sides, “and tree branches pulled the net down about 15 feet lower than it had been,” he said. Trees were pruned and a new $1,600 net was installed this spring, he added.
Kendall said last summer the driving range mats were changed in direction, and the balls increased in frequency, before dying down over the winter. The issue started up again when Larry Shea, whose 94-year-old mother lives at Doggett Circle, wrote a letter to Building Commissioner Ken Cimeno in March, he said.
In May, McInerney cited numerous measures McGolf took to keep balls within its boundaries, including replacing the torn netting, re-angling dividers in the hitting bays, and closing the last three bays on the left side to most golfers. But the problem has persisted. Kendall said 10 to 30 balls come across and are collected every week, plus whatever ones residents pick up. Since May 17, the Dedham Housing Authority has recovered 172 McGolf balls in Doggett Circle, Executive Director Joanne Toomey said in an affidavit.
The balls broke five windows at Doggett Circle during the fiscal 2010 year, she added. McInerney has paid for the broken windows.
Making his case for McGolf in court, Tracy held up an old, taller tee and a new tee, and said all four of the older ones have been eliminated, with the smaller ones installed. He said they’ve shut down five to six bays on the left side where they thought some balls were coming from.
“It’s not something that we’re just thumbing our nose at the Housing Authority or the town,” he emphasized. “We just need a little time to see if this will work, and we firmly believe it will work. And if it doesn’t work, we go to Plan B.”
“If in one to two months the balls are still flying in there, then I will say to you that we have to take additional steps,” Tracy added. “But shutting the business down doesn’t do any good to anybody, because we have to test to see.”
He said the problem is small when compared to the number of balls hit at McGolf every week – 400,000.
After the hearing, Tracy sought to dispel the perception that McGolf is dragging its feet, saying, “We ran into some manufacturing problems on the dividers…When we get those dividers, we’re going to put them in.” The 70 dividers cost $22,000, according to court documents.
Tracy said the dividers would be locked in place, as would the mats, “so you’re now angled away from any possibility of hitting that spot,” Doggett Circle.
“It’s not fair to not give us a chance to not fix this problem, and that’s what we asked for, and that’s what the judge gave us,” he said.
But Toomey, who runs the Housing Authority, confirmed that the town took the case to court because needed changes weren’t being made.
“We started meeting back in March, so we hoped for sure everything would be done a lot faster,” she said, adding that McInerney then had a plan for Aug. 1, but couldn’t meet that due to the manufacturing difficulties.
The parties will return to court to reexamine the situation on Sept. 23. In the meantime, McGolf gets to stay open in its peak season.
“I’m disappointed, of course, but I’m not surprised,” Toomey said of the judge’s decision. “They have a plan outlined, but hopefully it will work.”
Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
