News

Minigolf course relocation moves a step closer

In response to North Carolina ending its state of emergency later this month, Hendersonville City Council decided Thursday to require officials attend city meetings in-person.

By Amy McCraw, Published: August 5, 2022

Hendersonville moved a step closer to relocating the Laura E. Corn Minigolf Course Thursday night when the City Council approved a resolution to exchange property with the county School Board.

“This has been a long time coming,” Mayor Barbara Volk said as the council considered the resolution during its regular monthly meeting.
The council unanimously approved the resolution that calls for the school board to swap Edwards Park for city-owned Berkeley Park. Hendersonville also agreed in the resolution to pay the school board $250,000 in the exchange.
Hendersonville wants Edwards Park for the relocation of the minigolf course, which will be removed from Boyd Park when the city begins construction of a new Fire Station 1 on the property.
The school system will receive 16 acres of Berkeley Park in the swap. The historic baseball stadium in the park will be used for Hendersonville High School athletic facilities.
Volk said she expected Henderson County’s Board of Public Education to take up the resolution at its meeting on Monday.
City council voted in June to spend $350,575 to hire a New Jersey company to build a new minigolf course at Edwards Park.
City staff had also originally proposed relocating the tennis courts at Boyd Park to Patton Park to make way for the new fire station.
But on Thursday council considered several options from city staff that involved locating pickleball courts at Patton Park. Those options came about after the city heard feedback that pickleball courts are needed more than tennis courts.
After a lengthy discussion about how many pickleball courts might be possible or needed at Patton Park, the council decided to take the issue up again at its next meeting on Aug. 24 or at a meeting in September.
In other business, the council:
• Voted unanimously to first annex and then rezone property off Crest Road for a 31,274-square-foot training center where soldiers will drill on weekends. The vote came after no one spoke during public hearings on the annexation or zoning change to allow for industrial use. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently submitted an annexation request to the city of Hendersonville for the 20.6-acre site behind Upward Elementary School.
• Decided to require in-person attendance from officials at all city meetings until it receives further guidance from the state. City Attorney Angela Beeker brought up the issue after she said the state’s plans later this month to end North Carolina’s state of emergency put in place during the pandemic seem to require that officials participating in government meetings attend in person. Guidance from the state on the issue remains unclear, Beeker said. The council decided to require all officials participating in meetings to attend in person until hearing more from the state. Councilman Jerry Smith attended Thursday’s meeting remotely from his vacation and noted it was “ironic we are having this discussion.” The in-person requirement does not apply to members of the public who want to attend meetings remotely.