A lot of Jersey Village residents have moved here during the past twenty years and many of them assume what exists today has always been the same. To explain “what was and what wasn’t” would require a document that tells the history of JV and that is not the purpose of this article. This article’s purpose is to give light to the “true cost” of the golf course that the property owners in Jersey Village have and continues to pay for with higher property taxes.
Without going into the entire history of the Jersey Meadows Golf Course, the voters (property owners) of Jersey Village were not allowed to vote on the purchase of the golf course nor for any expenses regarding it since its purchase by the JV Government. The golf course has cost the JV taxpayers a total of over 18 million dollars since it was purchased.
The Jersey Village Government used Certificates of Obligations Debt back in the Budget Year 1999/2000 to purchase the golf course. Some members of the City Council have said the land is much more valuable today than it was back in 2000, but they have never explained what that means. Would it be more valuable as a city park or as a flood control detention pond? If it was sold to a developer to become more upscale housing with the correct stormwater detention ponds like what was done in the Lakes of Jersey Village and the Wyndham Lakes. When they never provide any details, you must just believe they know what they are talking about, but do they?
So, for all those years, the 125+ acres of land the golf course is on has not produced one cent of property taxes as it exists today, and the golf course has not provided one cent in the form of profit for all those years. Whereas, if properly developed, the new homes could provide additional property taxes and stop the property owners from subsidizing those playing golf.
The city council just committed to spending $8.7 million on a new golf course clubhouse and events center. The total cost will exceed that figure before the projects are completed. All of that money could have been used for other things like funding the rehabilitation or construction of a new sanitary sewage waste treatment facility in the original north side of US290 City of Jersey Village where all the residential homes are located. Now, the Jersey Village Government plans on spending $25 million which was the estimated cost more than 5 years ago to provide the required infrastructure on the south side of US290 for the Jersey Village Government to be able to annex and incorporate that area into The City of Jersey Village, Texas.