China Government Closing Under-Development Golf Courses


The Chinese government is cracking down on developers, citing a 2004 ban on new golf courses. According to a Reuters report, the ban was instituted to protect the mainland's diminishing land and water resources.

China is home to 20 percent of the world's population but has just 7 percent of the planet's water. The only place exempt from golf-course development is the southern resort island of Hainan.

Many developers have been able to skirt the prohibition by disguising the golf courses by calling their projects sports training centers or tourist resorts.

However, that hasn't stopped the government's demolition of new courses, including an 18-hole layout occupying a 150-acre site in Chaoyang on the outskirts of Beijing.

According to the report (http://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1543253/mainland-golf-courses-demolished-amid-beijing-crackdown), two other courses have also been bulldozed on the orders of the National Development and Reform Commission, while another has been converted into an eco-friendly park and a fifth turned into a tea plantation.

Because of the amount of acreage needed for golf courses, many of which are augmented by high-end villas and other resort facilities, they must be approved by the State Council, said Zhu Maoyuan, a lawyer who has seen the disguised applications.

Developers have been willing to ignore the ban as golf courses tend to attract super-wealthy patrons. One project backer was asking $87.2 million each for the 100 ultra-luxury villas around its new course.

"I have never seen developers and local governments use 'golf course' as a project name or for land-use purposes when seeking approval," said Zhu, a partner at the Zhong Lun law firm in Beijing.

"We got the land cheaply. We made money from selling villas around the golf course and the government got the domestic consumption it wanted," one developer told the South China Morning Post.