Hat’s off and sunscreen on for members of Hong Kong’s Fanling Golf Club, the oldest in the region. They’ve just managed to win a prestigious UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Environmental Award, one of only two golf courses that have ever convinced the judging panel that small parties of stick-clutching strollers batting at little white balls are the bee’s knees for environmental protection.
Fanling golfers are certainly proving themselves adept at playing whack-a-mole with their famously aggressive local government. That august body wants to savagely rip land from Fanling’s clutches1 to tackle Hong Kong’s perennial accommodation crisis. The land will be a site for new social housing.
Affordablehousingaction.org speculated about using golf club land for affordable housing, rather than allowing business blokes to cook up cozy crony capitalist fever-dreams intertwined with hopes of holes in one. More than one golfer thinks business deals are sufficient justification for preserving the Fanling golf course. Read more at THE HK HUB: Hong Kong Golf Club’s Fanling Course Wins UNESCO Conservation Award
Affordablehousingaction.org has recently offered some thoughts of dividing up up golf course land for the benefit of both those in need of housing, as well as those prepared to root around in the underbrush for their lost balls. Try: Could Golf Courses Cross-Subsidize Affordable Housing: Whoda Thunk It?. . . . . and Tycoons Beware: The Housing Crisis May Eat Your Golf Course
