CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Housing on a City Golf Course Debate

When the City of Port Ellery purchased the Cedar Hollow golf course in 1974, few residents imagined its fairways would one day anchor a housing debate. Yet with rental vacancies hovering below one percent and the course losing money for six consecutive seasons, councillors are contemplating a plan to rezone roughly half its 60 hectares for about 1,400 homes, a third renting below market rates. The remainder would become a public park with walking trails.

Mayor Léonie Dufresne, the plan’s principal champion, frames it as a question of fairness: taxpayers are subsidizing a facility used by a few thousand members while young families abandon the city for want of affordable accommodation. “Golfers would forfeit something genuinely valuable, and I won’t pretend otherwise,” she grants. “But this land belongs to everyone, not merely club members.” Covering the course’s deficits has drained the general budget, money that might otherwise fund libraries or snow clearing.

Gordon Achterberg, who leads the Cedar Hollow Golfers’ Association, disputes that characterization. “Those losses stem from years of postponed maintenance, not waning interest,” he insists. Membership has actually grown since 2020. Nor does he reject construction outright. Vacant parking lots and half-empty office towers downtown, in his view, should be exhausted before any green space is paved.

Urban planner Ravindra Sandhu, who reviewed the scheme, accepts that homes are urgently needed but questions the location. The site lies at the municipal fringe, forty minutes by bus from most jobs, and without a new transit line the development could merely exchange a housing problem for a traffic one. “Density succeeds near where people already work and shop,” he observes. “Otherwise, you’re trading affordable rents for unaffordable car payments.”

Ecologist Marguerite Oyelaran raises another objection. The course’s creek and wetland absorb runoff during heavy storms and have spared neighbouring streets serious flooding. Redevelopment would not trouble her, provided the wetland survived intact, but she doubts a park consisting mostly of lawn could perform the same function.

For renter Tomasz Wiśniewski, three years into a waiting list, such arguments feel abstract. “Everybody endorses new homes, provided they go somewhere else,” he remarks wryly. “Eventually, somewhere else has to be somewhere.”

I live two streets from Cedar Hollow, and I resent hearing that anyone who questions this plan simply dislikes neighbours. I know young people who left Port Ellery because 6. Choose…rental vacancies had dried upthe bus to work took too longthe city overspent on golfdowntown towers sat half empty, so I want homes built. But the mayor’s fairness argument overlooks the fact that 7. Choose…young families are already leavinggolfers would lose something valuablethe deficits drain the general budgetthe fairways do more than host golf. On Birch Crescent, that creek is why our basements stay dry, and a lawn won’t 8. Choose…give us anywhere to walkperform the creek’s functionkeep the golfers happystop the traffic. Nor can a course that has 9. Choose…been owned by the city since 1974lost members since 2020been starved of maintenancedrained the general budget fairly be blamed for running a deficit. If council truly cares about affordability, it should heed Mr. Sandhu and 10. Choose…leave the wetland untouchedfund the overdue repairsrezone all 60 hectares at onceput homes near existing jobs, or new tenants will spend their rent savings on gas. Build homes, by all means, but build them in the right place.