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‘We have something special here in Tomoka Oaks’
Jarleene Almenas Senior Editor
From the time it was proposed in 1960, Tomoka Oaks was marketed as a community surrounding an 18-hole golf course. And it was, for almost six decades.
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It was still operating when Carolyn Davis and her husband purchased their home in the subdivision in 2014. She remembers entering the clubhouse one day, just to see what it was like.
Now, nine years later, Davis is among the number of residents within Tomoka Oaks, particularly those whose properties abut the golf course, that wish to see the land remain as it is. The looming alternative? The construction of 300 homes.
In a meeting with the Observer in November 2022, as she sat in her dining room — the walls of which are covered with white sheets of paper detailing the timeline of ownership for both the subdivision and the golf course — Davis questioned whether the golf course could legally be developed, as she believed an original covenant of the property that declared it be used perpetually as a golf course remained valid. She still does.
“What was the original intent of this development?” Davis asked. “How many people invested in the development based on the master plan? Just because something was filed 30 years ago that negated restrictions, does that make it right?”
But the city, developer and the voluntary Tomoka Oaks Homeowners Association believe the covenant is void.
Proposal From A Local
Local developers Carl Velie, Ray Barshay, Sheldon and Emily Rubin purchased the 147-acre golf course property in April 2021, three years after the golf course closed. From the beginning, they indicated they wanted to build singlefamily homes.
For Velie, it was the location and “excellent development conditions” that first called his attention.
“Most sites available today are low and require a substantial amount of fill,” Velie said in a statement to the Observer “As such, your end product lacks the rolling nature that can be built into this development. My vision is to provide residents who live or want to live in Ormond Beach a beautiful new neighborhood where they can reside within an efficient, modernly designed home.”
As a local developer who has lived in Ormond Beach since 1963, and with a family heritage that dates further back — his mom was raised in the city as well — he is more concerned with developing a subdivision he feels would be an asset to the community, while still being an economically-viable development.
The developers have taken into consideration the concerns expressed by residents at the Feb. 8 neighborhood meetings, Velie said. They have since made changes to their plans, such as reducing the number of lots and arranging the development so the larger lots are around the perimeter of the development. They are also investigating if any improvements can be made to the diamond intersection at Tomoka Oaks Boulevard and North and South Saint Andrews Drive.
“The ownership group and the rest of our development team members are constantly analyzing to see how to make the development more in tune with the residents’ desires,” he said.
FOLLOWING THE DEEDS Tomoka Oaks’ origins date back to 1960, when the 545-acre development was approved by the Volusia County Commission at the time.
It wasn’t a smooth road. The city of Ormond Beach was in the process of annexing about 4,500 acres of land into its city limits, including the Tomoka Oaks property, and according to reports by the Daytona Beach Morning Journal, the annexation was hit with eight lawsuits in opposition, all of which were ultimately dismissed by a circuit judge.
Construction for both the subdivision and the golf course, initially known as the Sam Snead Golf and Country Club, began in 1961, and for the next 18 years, the properties saw several different owners, including William McElroy, Ralph Frederick and Milton Pepper. Davis is not a lawyer, but she’s always loved history, so when attending a meeting by the HOA’s golf course committee regarding the development of the golf course following its sale in 2021, her interest was piqued when her husband asked if there was a possibility that past conflicts of interest could prevent development. He was told the “records didn’t go that far back,” Davis said. She made it her project to find those records, and for the next year, looked up any references to Tomoka Oaks and its golf course in newspaper archives, went through old deeds and crafted a record of everything she found.
“The more I looked into this, and when I found this deed that said it’s to be perpetually a golf course ... that to me was like, ‘Wait a second, the records do go that far back,’” Davis said. “I want to see where this leads.”
Tomoka Oaks and the golf course, she said, were designed to coexist for mutual benefit. It’s her opinion that people like Milton and Frederick had a conflict of interest in cross-ownership when filing and making modifications to the protective covenants and restrictions of the golf course .
She compiled her research and has since posted it onto her website, TomokaOakshistory.com. She has also started a monthly newsletter.
“There are other Tomoka Oaks residents who I am in contact with constantly, who also are interested in exploring every avenue for stopping development,” Davis said. “The homeowners association has put their resources into how to get the best new development possible — how to represent the existing owners’ best interest. They are aware of the research. They have chosen not to associate themselves with it.”
‘IT’S HARD TO GET A CONSENSUS’
Helping the HOA advocate for mitigating the impact of the proposed development of the golf course keeps Jim Rose busy in retirement. A former real estate law attorney, he’s reviewed the documents. He’s consulted with the HOA’s legal representation, local land use attorney Dennis Bayer, and gotten an opinion from the city’s attorneys. If Davis believes there is a covenant to prevent the development, she needs an attorney to back up her opinion, said Rose, who is the chair of the HOA’s golf course committee.
“The problem I have is that, as long as people think that there’s perhaps a covenant or some kind of way to stop the whole thing, it’s hard to get a consensus together,” Rose said. “It’s understandable. These are people’s’ homes. It’s a big deal. It’s my home — if I could find a covenant, I certainly would to say, ‘You can’t do that stuff.’”
He lives along the golf course, too. Rose moved to Tomoka Oaks in 1990 because, as a golfer, he wanted to live on a course.
Here’s what the city’s assistant Attorney Scott McKee stated in a June 30, 2022 email regarding the covenant: Yes, it existed, but a 1963 warranty deed also noted a reverter clause where the condition that the golf course be used as such in perpetuity could be released under a two-thirds vote after 10 years by the Tomoka Oaks board of directors.
A meeting was then held in 1969 after the Tomoka Oaks property was sold to Frederick and a sale of the golf course was pending to Ormond Ocean Homes, Inc. At this meeting, the board of directors voted released the covenant, to become effective in 1973.
“In summary, the records confirm the existence of a document recorded in the public records that provided the property be used for purposes of a golf course in perpetuity,” McKee wrote. “In this case, the document was not contained in covenants and restrictions provided by a homeowners’ association, but rather in a warranty deed, and as stated previously, subsequent records confirm the reverter clause containing the language was properly released by a recorded corporate resolution and release, and therefore no longer valid.”
Davis has seen this email before. In an email, she stated that she believes the city “did not perform thorough due diligence when they disregarded all the research related to conflicts of interest in cross ownership which place a question on the release of the covenants and restrictions intended to protect homeowners.”
“The city is certainly entitled to their opinion, just as I am,” she said. “But the SEE TOMOKA PAGE 5A
15. May 14, 2006: A Daytona Beach News-Journal article reports Tomoka Oaks will “undergo a metamorphosis” due to a $700,000 effort to add clay courts to the Tomoka Oaks Golf and Country Club. It will be renamed the Tomoka Oaks Golf Village.
16. April 8, 2007: The City Commission approves Ryal’s proposal to build 35 town houses and six condo buildings on 30 acres of the golf course. Due to the oncoming recession, the project never moves forward.
17. Sept. 20, 2010: Ryals sells the golf course to Putnam State Bank to avoid foreclosure.
18. Nov. 22, 2011: Putnam State Bank sells the golf course to EJTS Holding, LLC.
19. April 23, 2021: EJTS Holding, LLC sells the golf course property to Triumph Oaks of Ormond Beach for $2.6 million. The golf course had shut down about three years earlier.
20. Feb. 8, 2023: Two neighborhood meetings are held to show residents the plans to build 300 homes on the 147 acres of former golf course land.