News of a fresh proposal by Gasan Group for the development of a 33-floor tower on the old Union Club area in Qui-si-Sana (The Sunday Times of Malta, November 2) justly attracted the anger of hard-working environment and heritage NGOs and residents. This peninsular strip of land is continuously raped by greed.

So many adverse effects were mentioned, not least the generation of some additional 28,000 vehicles milling around the narrow roads, most of which have now become one-way streets to alleviate the present frequent congestions.

Everyone knows how Valletta risked its international world heritage status because of the insensitive concrete jungle built on the site of the last historic fortress constructed by the Order’s military engineers at Tigné Point.

Hapless residents of this area and lovers of Malta’s natural harbour skyline console themselves today by ignoring the ruined seascape as having been built out of the way on the water’s edge.

But this obnoxious feeling cannot in future be extended to this new proposed skyscraper in the midst of narrow roads, already crowded by six- to eight-floor blocks of apartments that keep rising every day.

The sun already leaves Qui-si-Sana beach by midday in summer, much earlier in winter. Most of the narrow streets shiver in wind-swept shaded areas most of their wintry days. It is already a struggle to catch the sun for a couple of hours on small terraces and balconies.

With this threat to our health, the new proposed building could only contribute towards total urban asphyxia of residents and visitors alike.

An evening walk around most of the present mega blocks on this strip shows that the majority of newly-built apartments are still unoccupied.

Even if this blessing in disguise is extended to the new monstrous sky rocketing block, what future purpose would it serve?

To build a six-floor block with daily hours of hammering, scraping, screeching sawing of bricks, dusty concrete mixers and noisy heavy vehicle motors blocking most of the roads takes at least two full years.

We are looking at a minimum of 10 years of misery and health hazards for the streets surrounding the area.

God forbid the responsible authorities approve of this monster. Instead, one should readily approve of a garden gallery of sorts in that area, which would enable the commercial group to pay back the community with a green complex sheltered from the rough seas in winter,offering a tourist/crafts attraction including coffee shops so common in other civilised capitals in Europe.

True, this would not generate massive profits, but it would save lives, preserve a bustling beauty spot of the northern harbour area and come clean with the electorate.