Changes on way for Peters Township golf course | Local News

“We’re basically keeping the existing structure and just building it down and out,” said Barb Raymore, the club’s director of membership and service. “So the same lounge downstairs will be bigger and offer outdoor seating with a fireplace.”

Plans include the opening of a restaurant, the Farmer’s Dining Room, with an emphasis on locally sourced food and related products. Along with public golf, membership packages with various levels of amenities, including preferred tee times and dining opportunities, will be offered.

Calling the club “family-friendly,” Raymore said the objective is to continue to provide opportunities for more people to play golf – women and youth are some targeted markets – while preserving the land on which the course is located.

Known as Scenic Valley Golf Club since its construction about two decades ago, the course changed ownership in November, the same month Peters Township Planning Commission approved the request for a revised site plan that primarily addresses the clubhouse expansion.

Earlier, the township zoning hearing board voted against a request for a private recreation facility, scotching plans for a swimming pool, pickleball courts and additional maintenance facilities.

During the planning commission’s Nov. 11 meeting, township assistant planning director Seth Koons said the clubhouse addition would extend toward the golf course, not closer to adjacent properties.

“We’re going to work with the applicant to establish not a new buffer between the golf course and those residential properties, but a quality buffer that’s supplemented from its existing conditions,” he said.

That includes a pair of Cobblestone Circle homes near the golf course’s driveway.

“Those two properties have no landscape buffer, whatsoever. So we’d like to see that boosted a little bit,” Koons said.

His department consulted with township traffic engineer Michael Mudry with regard to parking at the site.

“The traffic need for the golf course at its peak time, which is about 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon, doesn’t really conflict with the peak parking need of the restaurant/clubhouse during the evening hours,” Koons said. “So the number of parking spaces provided by the applicant is deemed sufficient by the township engineer.”

Township solicitor John Smith was consulted about the procedure for approving the revised site plan.

“He concurred that they have the right to do this building expansion and this minor site reconfiguration within the bounds of that existing special-exception approval,” Koons said. “That would not require an additional review by the township zoning hearing board.”