Andalucia Limits Golf Development

In a move that some have described as revolutionary for golf-happy Spain, the regional government of Andalusia recently approved a sweeping new law restricting the development of golf courses.

The regulations, approved in February after months of heated debate, dramatically limit the number of houses that a developer can build around a course and require new courses to use recycled water for irrigation.

Throughout the country regional governments are approving similar measures in what is largely seen as a backlash against rampant golf course development. More than 100 courses have been built in Spain in the past eight years, most accompanied by high-density residential developments targeting foreign buyers. “I don’t have anything against golf,” said Juan Area, editor of El Observador, a newspaper here. “But I think there are too many golf courses.”

In Andalusia – home to the popular Costa del Sol, which is sometimes called the “Costa del Golf” – there are 118 courses, accounting for more than a third of the courses in the country. Nine new courses opened in the past four years alone, according to data from Real Federación Española de Golf, an industry group.

Critics say the golf courses were used as a Trojan horse, employing fairways and greens as an excuse to build rows of villas on environmentally sensitive land. “Probably in the last 10 years there have been more houses than golf,” said Ramón Dávila, president of Promotur, a tourism group in Andalusia. “And the government wants to re-balance this relation between the houses and golf.”

Full story at the International Herald Tribune