Environmental advisers divided over public housing plan for luxury Hong Kong golf course
- Advisory Council on the Environment fails to reach consensus after six-hour meeting over ecological survey behind public housing plan for controversial Fanling site
- Grass-roots housing advocates accuse Regina Ip of conflicting interests after government adviser waded into debate over development plan
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.
