A DUTCH company has expressed an interest in creating a golf course in the capital’s Athalassa park.
Representatives of the company this week met with lawyers in Cyprus and have apparently submitted an application to the Town Planning Authority of the Interior Ministry.
President of the Cyprus Tourist Organisation (CTO), Photos Photiou, said that the CTO will be “one of the members of the committee which will look into not just their application, but into all applications.”
Further details on the course were not yet available, he said.
According to yesterday’s Phileleftheros newspaper, the course will be located in the part of the park close to the university, new hospital and international conference centre.
Green Party leader, George Perdikes yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the party was against the creation of further golf courses in Cyprus as they are anti-environmental.
“They use up massive amounts of water and change plantation and the natural environment.”
He added that the park belongs to the people, “so why should a golf course be built on it which will mean that people will lose access to a large area of the park?”
A week ago, press reports said that businessmen’s interest in the golf courses to be built on the island has surpassed even the government’s wildest expectations.
According to Politis, more than 30 applications have so far been received by investors keen to take advantage of the incentives being offered, in what is an ambitious long-term project aimed at boosting the island’s economy.
Earlier this year, the government announced plans for the construction of ten new golf courses, which will add to the four already in existence. Yet it is precisely these incentives, described by many as over-generous, that have attracted public scrutiny.
At the time, it was suggested the incentives were geared to benefit developers more than anyone else. Some went as far as to claim that the government was giving developers a licence to print money, as agricultural land they had bought on the cheap from poor farmers would increase in value 10 to 20 fold with the creation of golf courses.
Interested parties will be asked to submit a master plan for the project (they have 18 months to do that). The master plans need to include environmental and traffic studies.
Assuming all goes smoothly, it could take up to three years before actual implementation – so the new golf courses are not expected any time before 2010.
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