[trollbridge]

As far as "valuable", the golf course is private property that the owners presumably bought and can do with as they see fit. If you want to develop it into something else, make an offer to them?

The golf courses are a business like any other (although we do have some publicly-owned golf courses around here too). The cost to play 9 holes on a weekday is $10 at one of them. I'm not really sure what you're asking for here.

[ekelsen]

Data centers have negative externalities which is why people don't think anyone should just be able to buy land and turn it into one.

Once of those negative externalities is water usage. The parent was commenting on the also high water usage of golf courses.

Perhaps that's the connection you've missed.

[trollbridge]

That's highly dependent on the area it's in. Where I live, golf courses use no more water than anyone else and aren't irrigated.

The proper answer would be to simply charge appropriate prices for large scale uses of water from the water utility, or else this is a discussion about riparian rights and law and possible changes needed to that.