Owner teed off by closure of super-luxury golf club in Shanghai sues for US$46m
The owner of a golf course demolished by authorities in Shanghai is seeking compensation of 300 million yuan (US$46 million).
Shanghai Orient Golf Club was ordered to close as part of a nationwide overhaul of the industry that is targeting golfing venues that pollute the environment.
Pan Zhongping, president of Orient Golf, a chain on the mainland and in Taiwan, said Songjiang district government ordered the closure because the course was next to the Huangpu River, a drinking water source.
Mainland law forbade golf venues to be built near drinking water sources, officials told him.
“I can’t agree with this order,” Pan said. “We acquired all the necessary administrative approvals and we passed the environment assessment by the district’s environment protection bureau.”
He said local farmers used 20 to 30 times more fertilisers and pesticides on their land than he did in maintaining the course.
How golf has boomed in China despite a freeze on new courses
He said the river was not properly protected, but this was because it was a primary shipping lane and had factories and property developments on its shores.
The 18-hole course, which opened in 2003, is the long-time host venue of the Shanghai Classic on the China LPGA Tour. The club has 600 members who paid hundreds of thousands of yuan to use it for 50 years.After a week of bulldozing, it now looked like farmland, Pan said.
Oriental Golf was one of five Shanghai clubs ordered to close by July last year. The shutdowns come amid a central government crackdown on courses accused of “irregularities”.
Golf, a luxury sport in China, has gained popularity with business people and corrupt officials and courses have sprouted up across the country. According to the Economic Information Daily, there were 521 courses in China in 2013, up 47 from the year before.
Putt it out, player: China’s Communist Party tells members to avoid golf, ‘extravagant eating’, extra-marital sex and other ‘corrupt practices’
In 2004, when the central government banned new courses on the grounds that they used up too much land to benefit too few people, there were just 178.
Professor Liu Shouren, at the China University of Political Science and Law, said the ban had been ignored by local officials who welcomed investment. “Golf courses also add value to real estate projects nearby,” he said.
But in the past two years the central government had clamped down on the market, he said.
Legally, golf courses must not be built on arable land, forestry land, land near drinking water sources and areas designated to prevent or control flooding.
Pan said he filed a lawsuit last year. The hearing, scheduled for January, was delayed.
Of the five Shanghai courses to be closed, three were located by drinking water sources, while two were on arable land, Pan said.
He said the government agreed to return 130 million yuan paid as a land-use fee and to cover the cost of redundancies, but refused to pay back 150 million yuan he had invested in the course or 150 million yuan in member fees.
