Armier’s boathouses are back on the national agenda after Enemalta’s recent decision to provide the illegal shacks with smart meters. Kurt Sansone revisits the decades-old saga.

With its rows of colourful boathouses, a weekly Mass and street names, Armier has all the vestiges of a thriving seaside village.

The community also has its own organisation that represents it, just like any other local council.

Nestled along the shores of the northernmost corner of the island, Armier is also the permanent home for some individuals who have their ID cards registered on their boathouse. There is just one snag: Armier is an illegal village.

The 800 boathouses were built on 230 tumoli of public land (the size of 36 football pitches) with no legal title.

No planning permits were ever sought, the street names given by the community leaders are not officially recognised and the vast majority of boathouse owners steal electricity.

Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna in September described the village as “a monument to politicians’ inability” to instil a sense of civic pride.

Over the years, politicians have been accused of seeking to appease hundreds who usurped public land, allowing the Armier shanty town to thrive. A similar blind eye was turned to hundreds of other illegal boathouses built in St Thomas Bay, Marsascala and the picturesque Ġnejna Bay in Mġarr.

Alternattiva Demokratika remains the only political party to date calling for the complete removal of illegal shacks and at the last election its chairman had even received threats for speaking on the matter.

There was an attempt to bulldoze the Armier boathouses in June 1991 when environment officials, the army and a large police contingent moved in with mechanical shovels.

The government tried to reclaim public land in line with the rules laid down in the Structure Plan but the high-profile action came to a screeching halt as hundreds of boathouse owners blocked the road leading to Armier.

The land grabbers protested loudly; some waved electricity bills as proof that past administrations had recognised their right to remain there and others derided the action as an attempt to rob ordinary workers of their spot of cheap leisure, even if a few were photographed driving luxury cars.

I was slowly learning that votes come before principles

Michael Falzon, the Nationalist environment minister at the time, admits that his decision to remove the illegality at Armier did not have Cabinet’s backing.

“When I tried to do something about the sore, I was left to burn my fingers alone. Perhaps I was naïve, but the truth is that I was slowly learning that votes come before principles,” Mr Falzon wrote last Sunday in Malta Today.

Ever since that botched attempt, political parties have reached a consensus of sorts to regularise the massive illegalities in Armier and St Thomas Bay. The boathouse community commands too many votes to be easily dismissed, many believe.

Before every election since 1992 the strong Armier boathouse lobby reached secret agreements with the two major political parties that would allow the large community to continue enjoying the fruits of their illegalities.

The tacit understanding is that all the boathouses built before 1992 – the year when the structure plan was introduced and the planning authority born – would not be demolished.

While no formal arrangement has been found yet to regularise the boathouses, a few plans have been bandied about over the years, including replacing the houses with modern beach rooms.

Discussions between Armier representatives and the current administration have been going on since last year.

But Labour’s Planning Parliamentary Secretary, Michael Falzon, would not say whether the solution being sought would leave the current structures intact or include their demolition and replacement with more uniform beach rooms.

All options are being considered and nothing is cast in stone

“There were various draft agreements over the years but we are working to regularise the situation as much as possible... all options are being considered and nothing is cast in stone,” he said earlier this year.

But the latest twist to the boathouse saga came in August when Times of Malta revealed that Enemalta was going to supply smart meters to all boathouses in Armier and St Thomas Bay, even if they had never had one before.

Enemalta has confirmed that only 100 boathouses in Armier have an old meter. The rest steal electricity from the grid or are supplied through sub-meters from boathouses that have the service.

The move means that the government has reversed a policy decision taken in the 1990s not to continue supplying electricity meters to illegal boathouses, which owners were interpreting as State recognition of their title on the land.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has insisted the granting of smart meters was intended to curb the wholesale theft of electricity and was not in any way giving boathouse residents title on the land.

Enemalta has said that boathouse owners in Armier and St Thomas Bay would be given the option to apply for temporary electricity supply against a fee and deposit.

Dr Muscat has warned that Enemalta will come down hard on electricity theft by boathouse owners who fail to regularise their position over the next month.

The saga is unlikely to go away fast... if ever.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com

Promises and plans at Armier

28 football fields

In 2001 the PN government unveils plans for the construction of 1,600 new beach rooms rented for €582 a year. The four areas identified for the beach rooms cover an area equivalent to 28 full-size football fields. Squatters who had a boathouse built before 1992 would be given right of first refusal. Plan remains shelved after public outcry.

The other ear

In 2002 the Opposition Labour Party signs an agreement with the Armier lobby group on the reconstruction of the village as long as no speculation or destruction of irrigated agricultural land took place. This pledge is renewed in 2007 and again last year.

EU vote appeasement

In 2003, just eight days before the election, the PN government agrees to hand over 230 tumoli of public land in Armier to Armier Developments Ltd, a company formed by the squatters, on a 65-year lease against an annual rent payment of €350,000.

Taking matters into their hands

In 2005, Armier Developments files a planning application to replace existing structures with 1,500 boathouses with a third being allocated to people who do not own a boathouse there. The application is shelved until the Marfa Action Plan is approved.

Growing villages

Armier, with 800 boathouses over a vast tract of public land, is by far the largest illegal village.

But it is not the only one. According to past declarations by the planning authority there are another 140 illegal boathouses in Ġnejna and around 370 in St Thomas Bay in Marsascala.

With 800 boathouses Armier has almost as many ‘dwellings’ as Floriana and more than Ta’ Xbiex, while the St Thomas Bay village is as large as Fontana in Gozo.

How it happened

1991

A massive operation involving the police, soldiers and environmental officials to bulldoze the illegal boathouses at Armier is abandoned after squatters protest and block the road.

2001

The government unveils plans to replace existing boathouses with modern beach rooms. A draft Marfa Action plan is published by the planning authority identifying the zones for beach rooms but it is never approved.

2002

The Labour Party in Opposition signs an agreement with Armier squatters recognising their claims to the land.

2003

On the eve of an election that is to determine Malta’s EU membership, the government agrees to hand over public land to Armier Developments Ltd, a company formed by the squatters, to develop the area into an organised village.

2005

Armier Developments submits a development application to turn the shanty town into an organised cluster of beach houses.

2008

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi signs a new agreement with squatters renewing the 2003 pledge and promising to intervene with Mepa on pending applications within six months.

2010

Planning Authority chairman Austin Walker says it is waiting for the Marfa Action Plan to be approved by the Prime Minister before any decision can be taken on the Armier boathouses.

2012

Mepa officials concede that illegal boathouses were “a problem bigger than Mepa”.

2013

On the eve of the election, the Labour Party confirms it will stick to the 2002 agreement with Armier boathouse owners.

2014 – June

Labour Planning Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon confirms ongoing talks between the government and boathouse owners at Armier.

2014 – August

Times of Malta reveals that in its drive to replace old electricity meters with smart ones, Enemalta will also be giving new meters to boathouses that previously had none.

2014 – October

The Prime Minister says smart meter exercise is motivated by a drive to clamp down on electricity theft and not linked to the legal issues concerning land title at Armier and St Thomas Bay.

Times Talk will be discussing illegal boathouses on Tuesday at 6.45pm on TVM.