Hong Kong court halts plan for public housing on golf course

HONG KONG - A Hong Kong court has overturned the government’s conditional approval for building public housing on part of an exclusive golf course that’s popular among elites, local media reported.

The High Court handed down the judgment on Dec 2 after the Hong Kong Golf Club launched a judicial review last year against the government’s environmental impact assessment that conditionally green-lit the development, according to Radio Television Hong Kong. 

The court also called on the government to consult with the public again, arguing that such an exercise hadn’t been carried out properly or fairly.

The ruling comes as a blow to the government that plans to build 12,000 public housing units on part of the Fanling Golf Course, the city’s oldest, which was built on government-owned land. The proposal has drawn criticism from elites who reasoned it would affect the course’s appeal as a meeting place for business leaders.

The government first introduced the idea to take back part of the site in 2019 to help solve the city’s housing crisis as the property market was overheated.

One advantage of the plan is that building on government-owned land avoids problems that would arise from removing and rehousing existing residents on private land. BLOOMBERG