Construction starts on Menie

Links November-December,

says Donald Trump

FROM THE GOLF WEEK WEBSITE
By Bradley S Keith
A controversy over five privately-owned parcels of land adjoining the planned Trump International Golf Club Scotland in Aberdeen, Scotland, will not stop Donald Trump from proceeding with construction of his links course before the end of the year.
The real estate magnate and golf course developer told Golfweek that he has initiated bid negotiations with four experienced links golf contractors and that “construction starts November-December.”
Trump International is a proposed 1,700-acre real estate, resort and golf development located seven miles north of Aberdeen. The site incorporates over three miles of prime dunes frontage along the North Sea and anticipates a five-star, nine-storey high, 500-room hotel. It also calls for a conference centre, 950 vacation homes and 500 luxury homes.
Two 18-hole courses also are planned, though Trump, working with English-based course architect Martin Hawtree, has finalised routing plans for only one course. Trump envisions it as worthy of an international championship, preferably the British Open.
That lay-out, as yet unnamed, calls for a circa 7,400-yard routing through dramatic dunes (pictured above) and across an environmentally sensitive sand dome that eventually will be covered in turf. The plan has passed muster with Aberdeenshire and Scottish zoning and environmental authorities.
Plans for the second course, intended as a more modest resort lay-out with more of an inland orientation, will depend in part upon the final configurations of the whole site.
Despite regional approvals, Trump doesn’t yet own all of the land he’d like to have for the project. There still are five contested inland parcels he’s trying to acquire. Though none are central to the golf course, they affect the ultimate scope and value of the development, according to Trump.
On Monday this week, the local Fortmartine Area Committee granted Trump permission to include the five parcels on his plan – despite the fact that they were not originally included in the site plan.
One parcel, a parking lot, is owned by Aberdeenshire Council, the governing body that gave Trump initial permission for the project. The other four are in the possession of individual homeowners. One hold-out, a retired fisherman named Michael Forbes, already has gained worldwide attention for his refusal to sell his 23-acre plot at any price.
Another hold-out, David Milne, told the Glasgow-based newspaper, The Herald, that "We have taken legal advice and been advised that these current applications are technically invalid and therefore any granted permission would be technically unlawful. The intention is to challenge these in court. It is likely to be on the basis of all four households. My home is not for sale.”
Trump’s on-site project director, George Sorial, has vowed to continue negotiations. Meanwhile, Trump plans to begin before the end of this year the 18-24 month long process of building the first course and its clubhouse.
Trump recognises that while it’s a down time in the golf and real estate market – “there’s a depression going,” he said – the site is too good to abandon. Nor is he worried about the immediate area’s susceptibility to heavy morning fog (“haar”) and cool temperatures – or the late afternoon shadows that emerge as the sun sets behind the Grampian Mountains. Such factors potentially limit golf-playable hours, even by Scottish standards.
Instead, Trump points to the famed Royal Aberdeen Golf Course just to the south of his site.
“It's got dunes that make their front nine one of the greatest stretches of golf in the world,” he says. “And our dunes are even better.”