Letters | Hong Kong’s Fanling golf club serves a few, while the majority live in poor housing

Government acquisition of golf courses for housing or other public needs is not new, Singapore has done it

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Public and subsidised housing in Shau Kei Wan. Given the acute land shortage in Hong Kong, the least affordable housing market in the world, the needs of the many should get precedence. Photo: Martin Chan

Published: 8:01am, 28 Jan 2019Updated: 8:01am, 28 Jan 2019

There has been a lot of debate recently around whether the land currently being used by the golf club in Fanling should be used for housing. However, the arguments have been long on emotion and short on facts. Hence, I’ve tried to compile few facts that should hopefully aid an objective decision on the matter.

The Fanling golf course covers an area of 172 hectares. This land, if sold, could fetch the government about HK$321 billion, considering the rate received by selling the latest site on the former Kai Tak runway (HK$$17,360 per square foot).

The club also pays a land premium of just HK$1,000 under its current lease, at a rental amount below market rates. Also, its roughly 2,600 members make up just 0.003 per cent of Hong Kong’s population of 7.4 million.

It is a common myth that the golf courses are environmentally friendly. On the contrary, golf courses require high consumption of water to remain green, apart from the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers in its maintenance. Unlike trees and shrubs, turf grasses have very little capacity to store water and withstand periods of drought. In other words, the most essential element of our existence is being wasted by the millions of gallons to keep the fairways nicely groomed.

According to the American National Golf Foundation, about 205 US golf courses closed in 2017, driven by lack of interest among millennials, with the majority of closed golf courses being turned into housing estates, and others into public parks, orchards and vineyards.