A Beijing emergency shelter in a once-public park has reportedly been converted into a cordoned-off members-only luxury golf and leisure club.

Instead of a shelter for people when an earthquake or other disaster strikes, there is an exclusive golf driving range, tennis courts, a luxury clubhouse and two fancy restaurants in the Haidian district Shuguang Disaster Prevention Theme Park, according to Web user wzmxx who posted pictures on online forum tianya.cn on June 23.

"The park was designed as free to the public, but now it is a facility for rich people even using the name of ‘public,'" Web user Bayi Zhencheng posted. If an earthquake did occur, the government could "immediately set up tents in the park," Party secretary Han Jianguo of Beijing Xinxing Shuguang Technology and Trade Company, managers of the park, told the Xinhua News Agency.

Investors had signed contracts to respect emergency use, he told the agency, and the construction of the 27-hectare park had been approved by the Municipal Bureau of Forestry and Parks in 2005 and was completed in 2008.

The State Council banned construction of new golf courses in 2004. Eleven government departments released a notice in June reiterating that golf courses built on farmland or woodland must be shut down, the Beijing News reported.

China had 170 golf courses before the 2004 ban, including fewer than 20 in Beijing, but as of May, there were more than 600 courses around the country including more than 70 in the capital.

"The high consumption of water and land resources and possible pollution by fertilizer and pesticide are not in accordance with Beijing's environmental situation as the city is extremely short of water and land resources," Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"It's not even suitable to change this from the function of a public green space to high-end facilities for an elite."

A towering sculpture of a golf player stands inside the south gate and a fence encircles the course where many were teeing off on Sunday.

The golf business occupied about one third of the park, Xinhua reported.

The Beijing Earthquake Administration was not responsible for construction and supervision of the emergency shelter, an unnamed official told Xinhua on Saturday. That was up to the property's owner: Han's company.

His partners built the business facilities including the golf course in 2007, Han told Xinhua, and the company earned about 12 million yuan (US$1.86 million) annually for renting the land.

The company could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

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