Outside In | Don’t let Hong Kong’s need for speed on housing crisis wreck Fanling golf course

Taking land from the golf course might seem like an easy ‘win’ for the new administration, but doing so would be hasty and unwise

Developing Fanling would needlessly wreck part of Hong Kong’s environmental heritage, and the Northern Metropolis project holds more promise

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An aerial view of the Fanling golf club, taken on February 20, 2019. It has hundreds of old and valuable trees and a huge variety of wildlife. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 6:45am, 4 Jun 2022Updated: 6:51am, 4 Jun 2022

One of the safer bets on the new “result-oriented” John Lee Ka-chiu administration is that it will arrive in office on July 1 with heavy pressure for clear, measurable action. A second safe bet is that some of the strongest pressure will be to tackle Hong Kong’s acute housing shortage.

As a long-time critic of the chronic procrastination of the Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor administration, I am all in favour of action and early moves to tackle housing. But we have to beware that an era of no decisions is not replaced by an era of hasty, uncoordinated decisions.

Just as Lam allowed the quest for perfection to be the enemy of the good, so we cannot allow the pressure for speed to be the ally of the flawed. So alarm bells began to ring when I read a week ago that the administration seems poised to approve plans to put 12,000 flats on the Fanling golf course.

One can almost hear the conversation among Lee’s senior aides on the need for some “quick wins” on housing. One can see them rifling through the 18 land supply options listed by the December 2018 report of the government’s Task Force on Land Supply.

“Lantau Vision or Northern Metropolis – too long term. Recovery of Heung Yee Kuk ‘brownfield’ or farmland sites – too messy and controversial to take on the New Territories clans. Plunder property developers’ land banks across the New Territories – too litigious and costly. The Fanling golf course looks promising: a single lease that expires imminently, enough land area to house a handy 30,000 people and just a couple of thousand rich and privileged golfers to contend with.”

From the vantage point of a populist politician keen to deliver results fast, the project is nearly perfect. The problem is that there is no strategic logic to the project if Lee is sincere about addressing our housing problem for the long term.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Outside In | Don’t let Hong Kong’s need for speed on housing crisis wreck Fanling golf course

Outside In | Don’t let Hong Kong’s need for speed on housing crisis wreck Fanling golf course