Why is Hong Kong Golf Club more precious than our country parks in the search for housing land?
Paul Stapleton says it’s only fair that the sprawling hectares of the Fanling club for the city’s elite be considered for housing, when even country parks are not spared
When I bought my flat here in Hong Kong a few years ago, one feature that attracted me was its unobstructed view of the mountains. Further, with a highway squeezed between the closest mountain and my building, I felt sure that the beautiful view would remain, without any possibility of a housing estate going up to destroy it.
I was wrong. A housing estate will be built after all.
Also nearby is a sewage plant that will soon be relocated. The insides of an adjacent mountain are presently being blasted out in order to rehouse the plant, to free up land for housing.
Such are the lengths that our government will extend itself in order to solve our housing crisis. Next up are our country parks, whose peripheries are now being targeted for development. It seems that no land is sacred.
Leung Chun-ying pushes ahead with plan for public flats in country parks
Hardly. There is one rather large chunk of land owned by the government that is hallowed ground. I speak of the Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling, which sits on 170 hectares of land. That’s the same acreage as several Victoria Parks.
Decisions about land usage are always difficult. The most basic of questions comes down to this: what is a reasonable way to satisfy the basic living needs of people who live with the most unaffordable real estate on the planet?
