Govt appeals ruling on golf course flats plan

The government said on Monday that it has lodged an appeal against the High Court’s recent ruling that overturned the government's approval of an environmental study into plans to build public flats on part of the Fanling Golf Course. At the start of the month, the court ruled in favour of the Golf Club and ordered the administration to relaunch a public consultation on the project’s impact on the environment, citing flaws in its environmental impact assessment (EIA) report. Now, both the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) and Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) are appealing against the ruling. "The ruling would have significant systemic impacts on ongoing and future environmental impact assessments, in particular, it may lead to serious delays in development, operation and execution of the development proposals," the EPD said. The Development Bureau, for its part, noted that while officials had already secured enough land to meet the housing supply target for the next decade, an appeal is crucial because the ruling has far-reaching implications. “This appeal is not solely for the proposed housing project but, more importantly, for seeking clarifications from the Court of Appeal on important subjects concerning the principles and legal issues of the EIA framework. The government policy is to strike a balance between environmental protection and development for the overall benefit of Hong Kong,” it said. The government had originally planned to build 12,000 public housing units at the site.