THE GOVERNMENT is rethinking plans to have 14 golf courses operating in Cyprus, given the serious water crisis troubling the island, Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis said yesterday.
Asked about water supply to the three golf courses currently in operation, the minister said a Ministerial Committee was examining the issue and would hand its report to the government within a few months.
The committee will look at the environmental impact of 11 new golf courses, the economic incentives involved and issues of land use.
According to Sylikiotis, the committee asked the Attorney-general for a legal opinion on the government’s legal obligations emanating from the previous government’s decision to issue permits for 14 golf courses.
The controversial decision by the previous government was taken without any recent study on the need or value of such a large number of golf courses in a country known for its frequent droughts.
The previous government based its decision on a 1992 study, which at the time suggested six golf courses spread out across the island as a way of attracting high-quality tourism.
However, the last government under Tassos Papadopoulos and with Georgios Lillikas as Commerce Minister decided in 2005 to give permits for 14 golf courses in total, with the majority located in the Paphos district. As a further incentive to developers, the government also gave the right to build golf “villas” around the golf course. The land in question was bought at a nominal value since it was located in agricultural zones.
Critics of the scheme argued that developers were set to earn millions on the back of the natural resources of the state. While individual citizens were made to wait years for permits to build houses for their families, golf developers were given the chance overnight to develop huge tracts of agricultural land, building highly profitable luxury villas.
Apart from the land issue, the three golf courses in operation today are using water from dams and their own boreholes to maintain the courses. Even if desalination plants were built to accommodate the water needs of all the golf courses, this would still raise the issue of carbon emissions, since the plants are energy-intensive.
Sylikiotis highlighted that water supply was one of the biggest problems facing the country.
“Everyone must understand this. That is why I said not a drop should be given for such developments,” he said.
The minister said just because a permit to build a golf course was given, this did not mean a developer could go ahead and build it. The law requires that environmental impact studies are conducted and town planning permits secured first, he said.
Sylikiotis said the government was also considering whether to stop providing water from dams for existing golf courses and obliging them instead to build desalination plants for their needs.
He questioned also the number of golf developments that an island the size of Cyprus could take.
“The last study was made in 1992, and spoke of six or seven permits and a minimum of one in each district.”
Asked whether more permits would be given, he replied: “No, probably the opposite should happen.”
