If you own in Pine Ridge — or you're thinking about buying here — you've heard at least three versions of this story: "they're building hundreds of houses on the golf course," "the POA stopped it," "somebody's reopening the course." None of them is quite right.
So we went through the county record and the court docket and put the whole thing in one place. One thing up front: we're not taking a side. Our neighbors are on both sides of this, passionately, and our job isn't to referee — it's to make sure that when you make a decision about your home, you're working from facts instead of a Facebook thread.
The property, in one paragraph
The old Pine Ridge Golf Club is a 221-acre ribbon of former fairways that winds through the heart of the community, roughly between the Rosedale Circle and Mallows Circle loops, with frontage along N Elkcam Blvd at 5600 and 5601 N Elkcam. The course closed in 2022 and has sat vacant since. Because the fairways thread directly between existing streets, hundreds of Pine Ridge homes back up to some piece of it — which is exactly why this fight has been so emotional.
The full timeline
The golf course closes
Pine Ridge Golf Club shuts down. The 221 acres sit unmaintained, and no operator comes forward with a funded plan to restore golf.
"Pine Ridge Reserve" is proposed — 85 homes
Dix Developments proposes 85 single-family homes on part of the property. The county's Planning & Development Commission recommends approval; residents organize in opposition, packing hearings and circulating petitions.
County Commission says no — unanimously
The Board of County Commissioners rejects the 85-home plan 5–0 after hours of resident testimony.
The plan comes back, revised
The developer returns with a smaller version: 80 homes instead of 85, roughly one-acre estate lots, the gated entrance removed, and about 120 of the 221 acres kept as open space.
Approved, 3–2, after a six-hour meeting
Commissioners Kinnard, Davis, and Bays vote yes; Commissioners Barek and Finegan vote no. Pine Ridge Reserve has county approval.
The POA appeals to circuit court
The Pine Ridge Property Owners Association challenges the approval in the Fifth Judicial Circuit (case no. 2025-CA-000756A), arguing the county got it wrong.
A new judge takes the case
The original judge retires; Senior Judge Lawrence J. Semento is assigned in late February. In March he denies the request for oral argument, meaning the appeal will be decided on the written briefs.
Waiting on the court
No ruling yet. No construction underway. The approval stands unless the court sets it aside — and even then, either side's next move could extend the story.
What was actually approved (and what wasn't)
Worth being precise here, because this is where the rumors drift furthest from the record. The approved plan is 80 single-family homes on roughly one-acre estate lots — the same lot standard as the rest of Pine Ridge. It is not apartments, not a gated enclave (the gate was removed from the plan), and not hundreds of houses. About 120 of the 221 acres would remain open space under the approved plan.
Eighty one-acre homesites, about 120 acres of open space, no gate — approved, appealed, and not yet built. That's the whole story in one sentence.
What each side says
Opponents — including many course-adjacent owners and the POA — bought their homes for the golf-and-greenbelt setting and say the community's character and their view corridors shouldn't be rezoned out from under them. Many told commissioners they'd rather look at nature than new rooftops, and the POA felt strongly enough to take the county to court.
Supporters argued the course is not coming back — it's been closed since 2022 with no viable golf operator — and that 80 estate homes on one-acre lots, with developer-funded infrastructure and most of the acreage left open, is a better outcome for the tax base and water use than a derelict course. Three of five commissioners ultimately agreed.
Both positions are sincerely held by people who love this community. We'll leave it there.
What it means for you
- If you're buying in Pine Ridge: know which parcels touch the old course before you fall in love with a house. Nothing is being built today, but the land's future is genuinely undecided — go in with eyes open, not on a listing agent's assurance either way.
- If you own along the course: be skeptical of anyone who tells you with confidence what this does to your value — in either direction. The honest answer is that it's unresolved, it's parcel-specific, and a closed course and a built-out estate neighborhood are different value stories, not automatically better or worse ones.
- If you're watching from elsewhere in Pine Ridge: the outcome matters less to your lot value than the forces we covered in our land-vs-homes breakdown — buildable Pine Ridge acreage keeps re-rating higher regardless of how this one parcel resolves.