Golf courses have long been the province of the rich in Caracas -- islands of green amid high-rises and slums.
But officials said on Tuesday that the mayor's office is expropriating the city's three major courses, apparently to build housing for thousands of poor in the Venezuelan capital.
The move -- which will likely generate new friction between supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez -- is part of an ambitious government effort to provide more homes for the poor and middle class amid an acute housing shortage that has driven up real estate prices.
`Forced acquisition'
Mayor Juan Barreto's office has ordered the "forced acquisition" of two golf courses and will soon issue another decree expropriating a third course in the ritzy hills of southern Caracas, city attorney Juan Manuel Vadell said.
Vadell said the golf courses' owners have 30 days to appear at the mayor's office, starting a negotiation period in which a commission will decide what the city should pay as compensation.
"What that appraisal commission says on the value is the amount we're going to pay," he said.
The expropriations appeared to broaden a campaign by Barreto and other Chavez allies to acquire land for public housing projects. Barreto has identified dozens of abandoned buildings in Caracas that could be turned into public housing, while squatters have sometimes raided and occupied unused apartments and homes.
50,000 homes
Barreto told state television as many as 50,000 homes would be built on 147 hectares spanning the three golf courses, saying the measure would ensure "the public and social use" of the land.
Chavez's government also has seized hundreds of thousands of hectares in the countryside as part of an agrarian reform program.
Barreto, a prominent Chavez supporter, has said that new courses could be located in the suburbs. He also said that the courses are unjustifiably lavish expenses in a country where an estimated 1.6 million families lack decent housing.
Critics, including residents living in the few upscale homes located within the golf course lands, claim that property rights are being eroded under Chavez and say many land seizures have been conducted illegally.
"This isn't an expropriation aimed at collective benefit," said Oscar Garcia Mendoza, a banker who lives at Caracas Country Club. "It's a violation of private property rights that appears to an extension of the communism these people want to impose on us."
Chavez, an outspoken critic of capitalism, says land and housing reforms are fundamental to his socialist movement, but has insisted his government also will respect private property rights.
Venezuela's Constitution allows expropriation for the benefit of "public utility or social interest" when approved by a court and as long as "fair" compensation is paid.
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