Hong Kong Golf Club takes aim at ‘deficient’ impact report for public housing bid
Hong Kong Golf Club takes aim at 'deficient' impact report for public housing bid South China Morning Post
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A Report on the Environmental Impact Assessment of Building Public Flats on Hong Kong’s Oldest Golf Course
Introduction
A report assessing the environmental impact of building public flats on part of Hong Kong’s oldest golf course failed to properly determine the site’s ecological value or address public concerns as required, a court heard on Thursday.
Judicial Challenge
The Hong Kong Golf Club last year launched a judicial challenge against the director of environmental protection’s conditional approval of the environmental impact assessment report, which could allow for the development of public housing on the Old Course in Fanling.
Deficient Report
Senior Counsel Benjamin Yu Yuk-hoi, the club’s legal representative for the case, described the report as “deficient”, adding that the ignored compliance requirements constituted a “technical breach”.
Ecological Value and Public Concerns
He also noted the area was home to 80 potentially “old and valuable trees”, which were identified as a serious constraint to development in a 2017 feasibility study report commissioned by the Civil Engineering and Development Department.
Yu said the trees listed in the 2017 report were not mentioned in the other document, despite authorities being required to review sensitive landscape resources when conducting such assessments.
The Development Bureau maintains a register of old and valuable trees residing on unleased government land located in built-up areas or tourist attraction spots in village areas.
Protected Trees and Hydrological Conditions
The nearly 500 trees on the list have a protected status and can only be removed under exceptional circumstances.
Yu also said the environmental impact assessment report had not properly addressed public concerns about the trees, as required under a technical memorandum.
The senior counsel noted the report left out the assessment of the land’s hydrological conditions, which are critical to the survival of the critically endangered Chinese swamp cypress in the area.
The ones at the site had been there for more than a century and accounted for 15 per cent of the species’ entire population in the world, he added.
Yu expressed doubts over the report’s conclusion that building public housing there would have an insignificant effect on the Chinese swamp cypress in the area, noting no analysis or assessment was cited in the document.
Yu described the failure to assess the project’s possible hydrological impacts or meet the requirements of the technical memorandum as constituting a “cardinal sin”.
“The study brief called for the study to be made. The additional information request called for the same study to be made, but it was still not done,” Yu said. “It is difficult to see why the [report] missed the requirement.”
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