By Julia Gsell
City Council will vote next Thursday on whether Buena Vista will become America’s newest golf cart-friendly community.
Last month, the council gave preliminary approval to a proposal that would allow residents to drive registered golf carts on city streets. If the plan passes after the second reading of the ordinance and vote on Oct. 6, the ordinance will take effect after 30 days, City Attorney Brian Kearney said.
Kearney said the plan sprang from an idea city officials had a couple of years ago about how to get campers from Glenn Maury Park into the city. The park plays a major role in the community—offering visitors and citizens an 18-hole golf course, The Vista Links, a 52-site campground, an Olympic size swimming pool, tennis courts, and much more. But Kearney said the city has had trouble linking park visitors with the restaurants, grocery stores, and other activities in the city.
“When these big motor homes come in here, they can’t just bring them into town,” Glenn Maury Park Office Manager Millie Sizer said.
But when officials realized just how many campers bring golf carts—along with their RVs— into the park, they knew they had found a solution to the problem.
Allowing campers to take their golf carts onto city streets would not only bring more traffic to the businesses in town, but could also provide new opportunities for business. Eventually, the city hopes The Vista Links and private businesses will provide rentals to tourists and citizens, Kearney said.
To get a better understanding of how the ordinance would work in Buena Vista, city officials began researching other communities that are friendly to golf carts, City Manager Jay Scudder said. Areas in Virginia, such as Poquoson, Tidewater, and Chickahominy Haven, are thriving golf cart communities. Even more communities throughout the country have made their streets golf cart friendly— including Peachtree City, Ga., and the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
After looking at these communities, Scudder and Kearney said the Council created a lot of its rules and regulations based on what these communities had already done.
Buena Vista’s police chief, Keith Hartman, said his department will enforce all of these regulations.
Hartman and the rest of the department are some of the most eager of Buena Vista’s citizens looking to hop on the golf cart trend.
“I think it ups the cool factor for BV,” Hartman said. “Most of these golf cart communities are seaside and retirement communities. This’ll be the first in a mountain area.”
According to Hartman, the police department bought a golf cart for $7,000 through a grant last month. The cart made its debut at Buena Vista’s Labor Day Parade, but it is being kept at an undisclosed location until the ordinance passes, Hartman said.
While the police department and a few private citizens are the only people in Buena Vista who have golf carts right now, if the ordinance passes, Buena Vista may see more and more golf carts on its streets.
However, City Councilman Steve Baldridge isn’t convinced things will change all that much.
“I think it’s a fun idea that’s not likely to be that dramatic,” Baldridge said.