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MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend July 11, 2004 John Billings, 92, can�t understand opposition to his dream of turning 170 acres of family land into a golf course. �I want to keep the property as natural as possible,� he says, �to keep it as it was.� Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Over the course of time Ashland landowner’s plans for property put city squarely between the past and the present By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune At age 92, John Billings can still fix a steely eye on a visitor who asks an obvious question. He does so now, leaning forward in the plastic lawn chair to make his meaning clear. Don’t you see the land behind him? The 170 acres of dry pasture and rolling farmland on the outskirts of Ashland? The land his family has tilled and ranched and fenced and nurtured for 130 years? Don’t talk to him about the "natural area" designations mapped out on some Bear Creek Greenway Plan, the latest obstacle to his 25-year dream of building a golf course there. "That’s what I’ve lived," says the rancher in bib overalls and plaid flannel. "Protection of the natural area." Advertisement Now that he’s getting on in years — "I’m no spring chicken," Billings chuckles — he believes that the best way to protect both the land and his family interests is to pursue a golf course. "I do not play golf," he says. "I’ve never played a round of golf in my life. I want to keep the property as natural as possible, to keep it as it was." As opponents and proponents debate the merits of golf courses in general and this one in particular, the snowy-haired man at the center of the quest remains confounded by the controversy. At issue is whether Jackson County commissioners will agree to lease 9.2 acres of public land developers say is necessary to complete the golf course, along with permission to build a bridge to access it. Critics of the golf course proposal argue that developers should restrict Billings’ plans to his own land. Pepper Trail, a wildlife biologist in Ashland, says Billings’ desires should not outweigh significant environmental threats to the riparian zone of Bear Creek. Public land should not be sacrificed to accommodate an oversized golf course, he contends. "It’s not the public’s problem; I’m sorry, but it’s not," Trail says. But the way Billings sees it, the commissioners should just approve the deal and be done with it. After all, when the county needed an easement across his land in 1997 to build the Bear Creek Greenway bicycle path, he granted it. "I said, ‘Fine and dandy,’" he recalls. ‘"Yes, I’ll allow you to go through my property.’" The deal included a land swap that granted Billings the right to lease about 8 acres of county land to use specifically for construction of a golf course. Now that he needs less than 10 acres to finish the course, he doesn’t understand the delay. The Greenway plan calls for a legislative amendment to allow construction of a bridge in the designated natural area, but Billings says such requirements can be finessed. "If given the proper support, they could just give approval immediately," he says. That’s a view informed by a career that included 27 years on the Ashland Planning Commission, a stint as a City Council member and memberships in dozens of service clubs, commissions and other community posts. In fact, Billings says the golf course proposal is simply the latest in a long series of his family’s civic deeds. "It’s very, very ridiculous. If you understand what is involved, it’s for the betterment of the community," he says. "It was always about thinking what the public would enjoy." Supporters of Billings’ cause say the issue is about more than the merits of one particular parcel of land. They say it’s also about the debt the community owes to an aging local leader. "People have forgotten John Billings and his contributions to the community," says Don Laws, a longtime Ashland City Council member. He favors the golf course as a way to preserve open land at the entrance to the city. "Most people don’t know of the things he’s done," Laws says. "In a sense, the new people are committed to a different kind of environmentalism than existed at the time the original agreement was done." That view is shared, predictably, by developer Mike Peru, who is building 73 houses on Billings’ land inside the city limits to finance the $10 million golf course project. He says he has been frustrated to the point of abandoning the project by delays and objections. "The only reason I’m pursuing this as hard as I have is that I gave John Billings my word that I would do my utmost to get him his golf course," Peru says. "It’s his dream, not mine." Although sympathetic to Billings’ frustration, Trail says the central issue must be preservation of environmentally sensitive public land. "A lot of people who own land do many civic things. That doesn’t mean we make changes to our land-use laws to accommodate those dreams," he says. Back at the ranch, John Billings shows visitors around his property, including the homestead built in 1848. This is where he was raised by adoptive parents after influenza killed his mother and father in 1918. It’s where he farmed and ranched and reared four children with his wife, Gladys, who died in 1999. It’s where he can no longer make a living from agriculture and where he refuses to consider offers from other developers. "No houses," he says. "I don’t want any more houses on my property." Jackson County commissioners are set to discuss the Billings proposal again Tuesday. Commissioner Dave Gilmour says it may be possible to come up with a compromise that satisfies public environmental concerns and Billings’ private desires. If it happens sometime before his 93rd birthday this fall, that would suit John Billings just fine. "They won’t tell me no," he says. "They can’t help it." Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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