The appeal to the city's Board of Zoning Adjustments focuses on the amount of food service planned at the clubhouse, which Hardie said is so extensive that it would amount to a restaurant, which is illegal at the site.

Audubon officials dispute that claim, saying the building will offer only the type of food service typical of golf clubhouses.

The city's Department of Safety and Permits issued a building permit for the clubhouse June 17.

Clyde Butler, senior vice president of construction for the Audubon Nature Institute, said Audubon signed a $2.1 million contract on June 14 with Gootee Construction to build the clubhouse and a nearby shed to store golf carts.

The golf course, closed for the past year for a $6 million reconstruction, is scheduled to reopen Oct. 17. The cart storage shed is expected to be ready by then. Butler said the foundation for the cart shed has been poured. The clubhouse foundation has not been poured, he said, but work is under way off-site to fabricate trusses for the building.

Hardie said he expects his appeal to be heard at the Sept. 9 meeting of the Board of Zoning Adjustments, which among other duties hears appeals of decisions by the city permits staff. Whatever the board decides, the losing side then could take the issue to Civil District Court.

Under the city's zoning ordinance, Hardie's appeal says, a restaurant is not a permitted use in Audubon Park outside of Audubon Zoo. The only food service allowed at the site under the ordinance is a concession stand, it says. But, it says, the clubhouse's "large commercial kitchen and dining areas can only reasonably be used as a restaurant."

Hardie said the planned kitchen and dining area will be far more extensive than the food facilities at the golf course's former clubhouse on Walnut Street. That clubhouse, though on the edge of the course, was privately owned and operated and was outside the park's boundary. Hardie said it offered only cold sandwiches, drinks, chips and candy bars, not hot food or full meals.

In the face of criticism from leaders of Save Audubon Park and several neighborhood groups, Audubon officials agreed last fall to reduce the clubhouse's kitchen from 1,825 square feet to 924 square feet, and the dining area from 1,060 square feet to 924 square feet, enough for about 40 diners.

The overall building was reduced from 8,580 square feet to 7,800 square feet, including 4,800 square feet of interior space. The rest of the building will consist of wide porches.

Audubon officials also agreed to move the clubhouse from the northern edge of the park's oak grove to its southern edge, closer to Magazine Street, eliminating the need for vehicles to travel through the oaks.

Despite the changes, Hardie's appeal says, "The introduction of a restaurant to the north side of Magazine Street will bring delivery trucks, exhaust fumes, garbage dumpsters and trucks, as well as additional traffic, to the heart of one of the few remaining green spaces in the city."