Golf vs homes: Hong Kong’s Fanling course could keep hosting international tournaments if players and officials can satisfy organisers
- Hong Kong Alliance of Golfers says alternative arrangements for parking and other amenities must be found after 32-hectare site is taken back for development
- Government to study possibility of providing supporting facilities to maintain venue’s attractiveness
Hong Kong’s showpiece golf course could continue to host international tournaments even after sacrificing some land to housing development if the government and players were able to work out remediation measures and get the nod from match organisers, a local sports group said on Thursday.
The Hong Kong Alliance of Golfers, comprising players, coaches and industry workers, noted that tournament games were not played on the 32-hectare site that the government intended to take back from the Fanling course. The area was usually used for parking and storing equipment for past matches, alliance spokesman Kenneth Lau Ka-lok said.
Lau said the alliance was willing to discuss possible alternatives to those arrangements with officials but added that he was not optimistic.
“I can’t see there is a space to park 2,000 cars,” he said on a radio show. “Organising the European Tour at a site has certain requirements, and space for parking is one of them.”
Why was part of Hong Kong’s Fanling golf course sacrificed for blocks of flats?
The PGA European Tour had expressed regret regarding the housing plan in a letter earlier, he said.
Lau was worried the organiser would eventually stop holding matches in Hong Kong because it had strict requirements regarding the set-up of public galleries, the media centre and parking space.
“But of course, there is still time, there are a few years ahead. We can talk and solve it.”
On Wednesday, the government announced it would be taking back part of the 172-hectare Fanling course, run by the Hong Kong Golf Club, to build at least 4,600 flats from 2024. More than half of them would be for public housing.
Lau said that international tournament organisers had the final say on whether to hold matches at the course, and the right to decide did not lie in the government’s hands.
The move was among the eight recommendations made by a task force on boosting land supply to plug a shortfall of 1,200 hectares needed for economic and housing developing, according to a government estimate, over the next three decades.
At the same radio programme, Secretary for Development Michael Wong Wai-lun said he understood Lau’s point, and he also felt it would be a pity if organisers decided to stop holding competitions in Hong Kong.
“There’s no painless decision,” he said.
The minister said the Home Affairs Bureau was arranging meetings with stakeholders to look into whether the remaining 140-hectare site could be used in a more efficient way to maintain the venue’s attractiveness to organisers. The government would also study the possibility of providing supporting facilities to achieve that goal.
The shortlist of eight options tabled by the land task force could produce a total of about 3,250 hectares – 2.7 times what it described as the government’s “grossly conservative” predicted shortfall.
