Months after a group of Nuns’ Island residents complained about a golf course built on public land charging high membership fees, the borough says it will act.

When Verdun’s borough council meets on Tuesday, the nine-hole Golf Executif Montreal course will be on the agenda. In May a group of residents said that despite a deal being reached between the then-mayor of the borough on the course’s owners to make the course public, golfers were still required to pay thousands of dollars in membership fees to get a tee time.

While a lease was signed more than 10 years ago permitting a nine-hole course on the land, when the course opened last year a basic membership cost $5,000 while corporate packages sold for up to $25,000.

“He decided to turn the vocation of the golf course from public to very exclusive and private,” said Nuns’ Island resident George Athans.

A course employee confirmed to CTV News that while the restaurant and driving range were open to the public, playing the full course required membership.

Verdun Mayor Jean-Francois Parenteau said the course’s lease is likely to be cancelled at the meeting, which would force the club to close. City officials noted that while the club charges private course fees, it pays lower tax rates reserved for public facilities.

“We’re fed up about the situation, the citizens are fed up with the situation,” said Parentau. “Now it’s time to pass it to another level.”

Club owner Guillaume Boulanger accused borough council of engaging in a smear campaign, saying the course is respecting the lease as written and wouldn’t be able to stay in business as a public course. City councillor Sterling Downey said that the course “is supposed to be public, it’s for citizens, it’s land ceded for this usage. It’s public land, it could have been a park.”

The course has run afoul of residents in other ways. In July, residents complained that the bright lights that switch on at sundown and turn off at 11:30 p.m. has fully illuminated their homes.

Boulanger said he’s taken steps to reduce the lighting but officials said plans are underway to legally bar the course from using the lights.