A view of The Bath Golf Club, established in 1932. Bath residents Peter Blachly and Alicia Romac were at the polls on Tuesday gathering signatures for a petition that would prevent development on the course. Courtesy of The Bath Golf Club 

For longtime Bath resident Peter Blachly, the rationale for preserving The Bath Golf Club is pretty simple.

“It’s the largest single piece of open space in the city of Bath,” he said.

Blachly is partnering with other locals – Alicia Romac, Chris and Todd Marco, and Bill Turcotte – to gather petition signatures in an effort to prevent housing development at the golf course.

The council last month turned down a proposal by The Bath Golf Club to reduce the course from 18 to nine holes and build townhouses on the freed-up land. According to Sean McCarthy, a managing member of the course, the club – which was built in 1932 – hasn’t been profitable since it expanded to 18 holes in the 1990s.

On Election Day, Blachly and Romac were at the polls at the Bath Middle School asking residents to sign their petition, which had garnered 731 signatures as of Thursday. The petition calls for the Planning Board and City Council to eliminate “cluster development” and “multi-family dwellings” from the list of allowed uses for the course property.

To get it onto the desks of council members, they will need signatures from 10% of the city’s registered voters.

For Romac, preserving the golf course is all about preserving a space for residents to enjoy the land.

“I am a golfer and a cross-country skier,” she said. “I try to be a good steward for the golf course; if I see sticks on the course, I pick them up, if I see anything amiss on the course, I call the owners. … We’ve tried to be good neighbors of the golf course.”

The club, which is managed by Resurrection Golf, frequently holds weddings and events and has a restaurant on site. In the off-season, many Bath residents who are not golfers use the land to cross-country ski, sled and walk their dogs. McCarthy wrote a letter to club members in September, outlining his goals for bringing the plan before the City Council and acknowledging the controversy that decision might provoke.

“I understand that this may be a difficult idea for many to swallow,” he said. “I, too, have grown up with and have come to love this property. While a tough decision, I believe this will create a profitable business that can stabilize the club for years to come and can allow us to dedicate green space in Bath in perpetuity.”

“The reason I’m advocating for strengthening of the land use codes is that many generations have enjoyed recreating at the Bath golf course,” Romac said. “It’s awkward that we have a community asset that is privately owned – but it’s still a community asset.”