Donald Trump argued his case Tuesday for the construction of a $2 billion golf resort on a stretch of coast in northeast Scotland after months of acrimony between the billionaire developer and local residents.

Trump faced a panel of planners and environmentalists' lawyers in a public inquiry in Aberdeen.

He wants to build the "world's greatest golf course" at the Menie Estate, 12 miles north of the oil town. But plans to create a course on a legally protected site of scientific interest have been met with opposition from local environmentalists and a landowner who steadfastly refuses to sell his property.

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Local fisherman Michael Forbes became famous after he refused the Trump Organization's offer of $690,000 to sell his family's run-down smallholding in the center of the estate.

CBS News partner Sky News in Britain reports that a protest group called Sustainable Aberdeenshire has formed in the area to fight the billionaire's plans.

David Milne, whose home overlooks the site, told Sky: "It would destroy an area of outstanding natural beauty… Why should Donald Trump get preferential treatment when other builders would be turned down straight away?"

The development has divided political opinion in Scotland and embroiled Scotland's first minister in a row about overstepping his jurisdiction in planning law.

Mr. Trump, according to Sky, says the course would bring millions of dollars to the economy and create over 1,000 jobs in the region of northern Scotland.

The proposals for two golf courses, 900 timeshare apartments, a 450-bed hotel and 500 luxury homes were narrowly rejected by the Aberdeenshire Council late last year after local residents and conservationists said one course should not be built on the Foveran Links, a stretch of shifting sand dunes that are home to some of the country's rarest wildlife including skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers and otters.

But local business leaders, tourism agencies and Scotland's nationalist first minister Alex Salmond approve of the development, which could bring-much needed jobs and money to the area.

"We have great support so I appreciate that," Trump said as he arrived for the hearing.

The tycoon will face a panel of three senior planning officials appointed by Salmond's government and lawyers representing environmental agencies in what is expected to be a grueling morning of testimony.

Trump is expected to play on his Scottish roots as he makes the last-ditch appeal to push through the golf complex.

On Monday he visited his mother's childhood home on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides and after touring the humble house in Stornoway he told journalists: "If it weren't for my mother would I have walked away from this site? I think probably I would have, yes. Possibly, had my mother not been born in Scotland, I probably wouldn't have started it."