The Court of Appeal has dismissed the government’s appeal against a High Court ruling in 2024 that quashed the environmental approval for a public housing development on part of the Fanling Golf Course.

Back in 2023, the government had taken back 32 hectares of the 172-hectare golf course upon expiry of a land lease. It had planned to develop 9.5 hectares of the resumed site for into 12,000 public flats.

Handing down the verdict on Monday, a three-judge panel led by Chief Judge Jeremy Poon upheld the Court of First Instance's decision, which concluded that the Director of Environmental Protection had not acted in accordance with the law in approving the project's environmental impact assessment (EIA) report.

The government had contended that the judicial review had become "academic", pointing to its June 2023 amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance which removed the project from the list of designated developments requiring such assessments.

The judges, however, determined that the approval remained a live issue, as the EIA report could still be relied upon for other purposes under the ordinance.

In upholding the lower court's findings, the judges observed that the consultation process did not adequately cover supplementary information added to the EIA report, and that responses submitted by the golf club were not taken into consideration.

The judges also found that the conditions attached to the approval were worded in a manner that effectively required a substantial redesign, which it ruled had fallen outside the permissible scope of conditional approval.

The judgment further addressed the EIA report's treatment of protected trees, as well as the cultural heritage impact on the "Old Course," recognised as the oldest golf course in China.

The lower court had previously described the classification of the impact on the Old Course as "undetermined" and "irrational", noting that the impact was, in its words, "blindingly obvious".

Regarding the conditions imposed by the Environment Protection Department (EPD) on the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) — which included revising layout plans, preserving woodland, and submitting new designs for approval — the appellate court ruled that these requirements were not within the permissible limits of conditional approval, effectively deferring key decisions to a later stage.

The DEP and CEDD were ordered to pay the golf club's costs for the dismissed appeal.



Edited by Raymond Yeung