A Pauquachin First Nation company is buying the Glen Meadows Golf & Country Club on McTavish Road, the lawyer for the family marketing the 132-acre property said Friday.
The B.C. Supreme Court-approved sale means the Saanich Peninsula First Nation will own two golf course properties. It bought the 47-acre Ardmore Golf Course, also in North Saanich, early last year from the DuTemple family.
Glen Meadows’ purchase price was $5.38 million, lawyer Josh Bloomenthal said. The largest of the lots is 126 acres and is in the agricultural land reserve.
On Tuesday, Master Carolyn Bouck approved the new sale, which closes May 22, Bloomenthal said.
A spokesperson for the Pauquachin First Nation could not be reached Friday.
The property, consisting of three lots at 1050 McTavish Rd., hit the market last year after conditions in a 2017 sales agreement at $4.8 million were not completed. Percy and Rae Criddle ran a family farm on the site before launching a golf course more than 50 years ago.
Glen Meadows was developed into a popular recreational facility featuring the golf course, a six-sheet curling rink, club house, tennis court and parking lot.
In 2015, the family failed to win support from North Saanich council for its proposal to create 35 strata-titled lots connected to a community farm. That proposal would have seen the remaining 100 acres donated to the municipality.
At the time, council had reservations about the proposed density and the viability of a community farm.
Glen Meadows was put on the market. The family agreed to help finance the 2017 sale with $3.36 million to Hong Hua Hu, who then assigned his shares to a numbered company.
But the numbered company failed to make its final payment, which was due in December 2019, to the Criddle family. That left it owing $3.36 million plus monthly interest, court documents show.
The buyers said in documents that the original plan was to invest in the property and its operations, but a key investor disappeared.
In 2018, Glen Meadows decided that golf memberships would be cancelled. It also announced that the curling club would not reopen in the fall. Some people had been members at Glen Meadows for 50 years.
The Criddle family said in court documents that the property had been allowed to deteriorate after maintenance was halted.
The company’s failure to come up with the final payment led to a foreclosure action by the Criddle family, which received the right to put the property up for sale again.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
