Environmental advisers divided over public housing plan for luxury Hong Kong golf course

Hong Kong environmental advisers have failed to reach a consensus on a government plan to build public housing on a luxury golf course even as development officials brushed aside their concerns and stressed the land was needed to help solve the property crunch.

Some members of the Advisory Council on the Environment raised doubts over the methodology of the ecological survey commissioned by the government at Monday’s talks. They must reach a final decision before August 28.

The six-hour meeting took place a day after Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, the city’s top government adviser and a declared member of the Hong Kong Golf Club, which leases the site in Fanling, argued the plan, endorsed by the previous administration, was not cost-effective.

Fellow Executive Council member Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung echoed Ip’s call, saying the current government should review the plan now that more land had been located for housing.

“Back then we hoped to build flats as long as we found sites, regardless of how small they were. Who would have thought we would then decide to carry out a large-scale reclamation for the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project?” he said, referring to the initiative to create a new metropolis on man-made islands in waters off Lantau Island.

It was understood the club had been stepping up its lobbying efforts to have the idea scrapped, especially following the government transition. They had invited a number of experts and stakeholders, including members of a now-defunct task force on land supply, to visit the course.

Stanley Wong Yuen-fai, chairman of the advisory council, said members had expressed many doubts over the study data.