The 18 holes of Countryside Golf Course have for two and a half years lain beneath a fog of uncertainty.

Now Roanoke City Council will devote two hours of its Monday meeting to discuss the property, its history and -- ideally -- plans for its future.

"Our goal is to get guidance from council as to what they want the administration's next steps to be," said Assistant City Manager Brian Townsend, who will spend the first portion of the discussion briefing the council's new members on the property's background.

From there, the council essentially has a "decision tree," where one decision will lead to the next.

The city acquired the property in late 2005 with the intention of developing it for new housing. After that plan didn't work, it renewed its lease with Meadowbrook Golf, the Florida-based company that served as the previous owner, to manage the course for another year.

The discussion comes as the lease with Meadowbrook and a longer-term lease with Roanoke Regional Airport are set to expire this fall. That leaves a number of questions swirling around the property:

• Does the council want to take another shot at development or leave it for recreation?

• If the latter, then should it be used for athletic fields, passage for the Lick Run Greenway or maybe even an aquatic facility with swimming pools?

• And if the council does want to stick with the 18-hole golf course, then who manages it? Meadowbrook? The city? Or should it issue a request for proposals?

Various council members have different ideas, but most seem to agree that the attempt to develop the site was a failure. The city paid $4.1 million for the land because it's located along Interstate 581 and is one of the largest undeveloped tracts still left in Roanoke.

But three requests for proposals yielded only one full response, from a development group that included Triangle Development of Richmond, the Victor Foti Co. and Allegheny Construction of the Roanoke Valley, and Mike Morgan Engineering of Midlothian. It involved shrinking the course to nine holes and surrounding it with a variety of housing and retail buildings.

When the city requested that the developers respond to concerns that emerged from a public meeting, they responded with a revised proposal that wiped out much of the housing, replacing it with athletic fields and a 56-acre "big-box commercial" zone. The council promptly rejected the plans.

Councilman Alvin Nash, who's been a member of the golf club at Countryside since 1986, said he is in favor of keeping the property as an 18-hole golf course.

"I think it was a mistake to even try to do something with it in the first place," Nash said. "But the city backed into a situation, whether they intended to or not, where they have a municipal course, and hopefully they can get it right this time."

Valerie Garner, chairwoman of the Countryside Neighborhood Alliance, lives in a house that abuts one of the course's fairways. As a neighbor, she said she'd like to see the city first address the city's lease with the airport. She'd then like to see the city negotiate an operating agreement with Meadowbrook that mirrors the length of the airport lease, or at least long enough to make the company "feel like they can put the money into it to maintain it," Garner said.

Councilman David Trinkle addressed the issue at length on his weblog at davetrinkle.com. He writes that he believes the property is one of the city's "quality of life amenities" that can be used to attract new residents and economic development.

"Certainly at this point, I support keeping the attractive 18-hole course and would strongly consider management options that may help it be more profitable while providing solid maintenance and upkeep," Trinkle wrote.

But he also said he'd be open to using the property for athletic fields, tennis courts or even an aquatic center. But before the city moves forward, he'd like to come to agreement on a plan.

"At this point I really don't support doing anything else with that property until we have a long-term plan for the entire property," Trinkle said.

In other business, the council will hear an annual report from Downtown Roanoke Inc., receive a briefing on public art and consider a rate increase in taxi fares.

On the Net:

www.davetrinkle.com/?p=26

savecountryside.blogspot.com