(Bloomberg) -- The Hong Kong government is appealing a court ruling that halted construction plans of public housing on a portion of an exclusive golf course.
The city’s environment protection department and civil engineering department both filed appeals against the Dec. 2 judgment, which had required an additional public consultation on the project. They said the additional requirements go beyond what legislation demands of an environmental impact assessment, according to statements on Monday.
The court’s ruling “could lead to serious delays in implementing the development proposals,” the Environmental Protection Department said in its statement.
The court’s decision was handed down in early December after the Hong Kong Golf Club launched a judicial review last year against the government’s environmental impact assessment that conditionally green-lit the development. The plan proposed building 12,000 public housing units on part of the Fanling Golf Course — the city’s oldest.
Even though the golf course was built on government-owned land, the plan has drawn criticism from elites who reasoned it would affect the course’s status as a meeting place for business leaders.
The government first introduced the idea to reclaim part of the site in 2019 to help alleviate the city’s housing crisis as the property market was overheated. One advantage of the plan is that building on government-owned land doesn’t lead to removing and rehousing existing residents on private land.
Hong Kong’s property market has since seen a record downturn due to a weak economy, oversupply and high interest rates. Home prices are now close to the lowest level in eight years.
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