Golf club members asked to air views on Fanling housing

The Hong Kong Golf Club has asked members to air their views on whether part of its Fanling course should be used to build homes.

According to an e-mail from an anonymous club member to The Standard's sister publication Sing Tao Daily, members were asked to send their opinions on a plan to redevelop a piece of the course to the Town Planning Board by 5pm on August 29.

Earlier this month a feasibility study said a nine-hectare plot on the eastern side of a fairway could be used for development to help ease the housing crisis, providing an estimated 12,000 flats for 33,600 residents by 2029.

Besides stating their positions on the development plan, members were asked to suggest alternatives, "which might include maintaining the status quo or perhaps using other land options such as brownfield sites or the Northern Metropolis."

The e-mail was sent to over 2,600 club members after the Advisory Council on the Environment deferred making a decision on whether it would approve a report on the environmental impact of redeveloping the Fanling plot following a 10-hour meeting on Friday.

Attached in the internal correspondence was a document providing a "summary of concerns" including cultural heritage, Hong Kong's golf community and ecological concerns, but there was no mention of potential positive impacts of the development plan.

In 2018, then chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor appointed a land supply task force to help resolve the SAR's pressing housing shortage.

The panel eventually proposed using 32 hectares of land on the east side of the 172-hectare golf course to build homes. The advisory council later reduced that figure to nine hectares. Politicians and business elites, some of them members of the Hong Kong Golf Club, have voiced opposition to the plan.

Executive Council convener Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, herself a member, lambasted the plan earlier, saying it reflected "double standards."

She argued the administration "vowed to back the sports sector, so why didn't it support the golf club?"

She also said authorities could alleviate the housing crunch by developing areas around country parks and parts of the SAR's 16,000-hectare green belt - a proposal also raised by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu.

Speaking on a radio program yesterday, advisory council chairman Stanley Wong Yuen-fai said authorities could plan construction of public housing on a part of the Fanling course while submitting supplementary environmental assessments to the council.

But he believed the requirement for supplementary information would not delay building homes on the golf course.

Wong also said on Sunday that the golf course development plan would be a short- to medium-term arrangement to increase land supply and housing supply very efficiently, and that the plan should not be scrapped just because the Northern Metropolis project exists.

His remarks came after council members said in last Friday's meeting that more information was needed on factors including the proposed estate layout and the ecology of the proposed development, including a seven-month study on the flight paths of the bird population on the golf course.

Urban geographer and founder of the Liber Research Community think tank Chan Kim-ching said housing will have to be built in other areas including green belts and areas surrounding country parks if the council does not approve the report.

cjames.lee@singtaonewscorp.com