Letters | It’s 2023. Why do Hong Kong golf clubs still enjoy cheap land?
- Readers discuss the colonial-era policy of leasing recreational land at cheap rents, safety risks around ageing buildings, and fairness for taxi drivers
Just about every imaginable reason for either opposing or going ahead with it has been bandied around in Hong Kong’s hottest debate of the day. However, the underlying and really irreconcilable problem seems not to have been addressed. The root of the problem is that the economic value of the land, along with the Hong Kong government’s overriding principle that “the user pays”, is being ignored or swept under the carpet.
Every club in Hong Kong which has land on the cheap should be compelled to submit a bid for a new periodic lease or a lease renewal, and whichever organisation submits the highest bid should win the lease.
And this should also apply to the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The holder of a lucrative gambling monopoly should not also be the beneficiary of cheap land to provide the elite with subsidised private club memberships. These club members should be paying the full going rate for the land on which club premises sit, just as all of us do for privately owned or rented residential properties.