Surprise! Hotel Development and Timeshare Deal Gets Trumped

Forget the news Donald Trump and the Trump Organization received last week from the Aberdeensire Formartine area committee giving them the go-ahead to build his masterpiece golf course, hotel, and Aberdeen, Scotland timeshares. The Scottish tide has turned and, in a meeting held November 29, 2007, The Donald has been trumped by the Aberdeen Council.

Plans for Trump International Golf Links Scotland were rejected by a narrow margin with the committee’s failure to approve the planning application. The vote was initially deadlocked, leaving it to the committee chairman to cast the deciding ballot.

According to a Press Association Limited news file and an article that appeared in Hotels Magazine, George Sorial, who has been the Trump representative onsite through most of the past year of negotiations, warned the committee that their negative vote, “…sends out a devastating message that if you want to do big business don’t do it in the north-east of Scotland.”

Okay, Sorial, that just sounds like sour grapes.

If this golf course and Scotland timeshare resort is never built in this location, (and I say “if” because the Trump Organization still has the option to appeal) then I am sure that somewhere in the world there is a suitable venue where the local residents would welcome construction of a multi-billion dollar vacation resort.

Aberdeen residents voiced many different objections to the hotel and timeshare deal – so many different types of objections that it would have seemed difficult for even Donald Trump to have put them all to rest. Among the project’s leading opponents was Councilor Alastair Ross, a member of the Aberdeenshire Council, who was quoted by The International Herald Tribune as saying, “Very little of the money generated from the project would have remained in the area. There was a fast buck to be made.”

Fast buck or not, one thing is certain; this is (or was) a big buck project. As the Timeshare Owners Blog has reported in the past, Trump’s plans for the development included a 1 billion pound (€1.4 billion, US $2.1 billion) resort, with two 18-hole golf courses, a 450-room hotel, 950 vacation homes (timeshare units), 36 golf villas (timeshare units) and 500 upscale private residences.

Overall, there has been enough drama about this hotel and timeshare deal to have easily beaten out Trump‘s old TV series, “The Apprentice” in the viewer ratings. But hold on for the next round, because this made-for-TV conflict may not be over yet.

So what’s your opinion? When a majority of the area residents oppose a project, is the local government justified in approving it anyway? Is this a case of opposing worthwhile progress and development that could revitalize a struggling local economy? Or should the residents of the links land north of Aberdeen have the right to veto the project in favor of protecting their environment and their quiet lifestyle?

I’d love to hear what you think about this…

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Here’s an interesting YouTube, in which Donald Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki discuss “Why We Want to Be Rich.”