“Back then we hoped to build flats as long as we found sites, regardless of how small they were. Who would have thought we would then decide to carry out a large-scale reclamation for the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project?” he said, referring to the initiative to create a new metropolis on man-made islands in waters off Lantau Island.

It was understood the club had been stepping up its lobbying efforts to have the idea scrapped, especially following the government transition. They had invited a number of experts and stakeholders, including members of a now-defunct task force on land supply, to visit the course.

Stanley Wong Yuen-fai, chairman of the advisory council, said members had expressed many doubts over the study data.

“We can’t say yet whether we will approve the environment impact assessment report,” Wong said.

He added that he would convene another meeting of the advisory council in the hopes of reaching a consensus before the deadline.

Redeveloping parts of the Fanling site was one of several controversial housing supply proposals adopted by the last administration to tackle the city’s acute shortage of land for housing. The plan was generally well-received by the members of the public, but drew the ire of the club members and business elites.

The latest plan would involve taking back 32 hectares of the 172-hectares site to build 12,000 homes for roughly 33,600 people by 2029, accounting for about one-third of the government’s annual supply target of public housing. The buildings will be on nine hectares, with the rest of the 32 hectares to be turned into a park.

Ahead of the closed-door session, some members attending a discussion open to the public questioned why developing the Fanling golf was needed, given the plans to build the Northern Metropolis.

Repackaged and expanded from an existing northern New Territories project, the ambitious Northern Metropolis blueprint covers 30,000 hectares (74,130 acres) and aims to house 2.5 million people.

Hong Kong may use luxury Fanling golf site to build 12,000 public housing flats

But Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organisation, a campaign group, said there was no reason to shelve the idea.

“Some 12,000 flats is not a small number,” she said. “Rich people can travel to the mainland for golf, but poor people do not have the luxury for that.”

Brian Wong Shiu-hung, of Liber Research Community, a civil group concerned with development, accused Ip of having a conflict of interest and using her role as Exco convenor to put pressure on the advisory council.

“She’s now blocking the scheme that is backed by public opinion and with a controllable environmental impact … What should John Lee, who wants to build more homes and build them faster, do?” Wong asked, referring to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu.

Members also said the environmental review process failed to record the number and diversity of animal species inhabiting the golf course, such as birds and bats.

Member Sylvia Chan May-kuen, a primary school principal, challenged the authorities’ assumptions that developing a small part of the course would not cause environmental damage to the rest of the site.

“The reasons why sub-area 1 [the area proposed for development] has a lower ecological value is that the animals have been driven away by nearby urbanisations,” she said.

Responding to the queries, John Chung Wing-hong, a chief engineer at the Civil Engineering and Development Department, said the proposal was critical as Hong Kong lacked land for housing.

“The data we have collected … and other technical evaluations have reflected that there will be no unacceptable impact on the environment if we adopt mitigation measures,” Chung said.

Wong, who chaired the now-defunct task force on land supply, which recommended redeveloping the golf site, noted the focus of the task force was different from the Advisory Council on the Environment – which purely deals with ecological issues.

“It would be very different from the land supply task force that I chaired between 2017 and 2019 because, in that particular task force, we focused on how to create sufficient land for housing and other purposes,” he said.

Green belts an option on land for housing

A spokesman for the golf club maintained that the old course was a “living heritage site containing graves dating back to the Ming dynasty” and was a site of great ecological importance and home to many old and rare trees of significant conservation value.

It said taking away eight holes of the Old Course would adversely impact the city’s golf development.

During his election bid, Lee had pledged to boost the quantity and speed of housing supply in Hong Kong, while Chinese President Xi Jinping has called the task one of the most important facing the new government.