Andrew Ganado, in his letter ‘The facts on Townsquare’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, September 4), claims that the Townsquare skyscraper is “100 per cent in accordance with all PA policies”. This is debatable. This skyscraper was approved with indecent haste by the PA on the basis of an Environment Impact Assessment which has since been described as a “sham”. This alone is sufficient indication of dereliction of good governance.
Added to this was the illegal and underhanded way in which the Mrieħel towers were simultaneously approved on the basis of distorted photomontages and without prior public consultation.
Furthermore, not only was Victor Axiak, a key member of the board, absent from the PA board meeting but his crucial letter (since published), in which reservations were expressed, was not read out by Timothy Gambin at that hearing.
Such rampant, uncontrolled development has become part of the “building greed that is all around us to see” which is “enveloping our island in dust and concrete” (Times of Malta, editorial, September 12).
Mr Ganado disputed the claim that Sliema is already “heavily polluted and unhealthy”. Our air quality monitoring suggests that most of built-up Malta is traffic polluted. Scientific longitudinal studies have shown that urban traffic pollution is particularly severe and injurious to local residents’ health in areas like Sliema.
Mr Ganado tried to sweet-talk readers into believing that this “sleek, narrow building” will have “huge advantages” and ostensibly reduce pollution by allowing “more movement of air” – when the real issue is exacerbation of traffic and other pollution at street level.
In addition to the long-term contribution to our pollution by the future heavy energy needs of this skyscraper, there will be increased street pollution during construction from heavy transport diesel vehicles. This alone will likely contribute to a number of early deaths among residents from lung and heart disease.
That the project is in a “prime location” alters nothing. This location is over-built and over-exploited. Further cramming of multiple apartments will exert a significant negative cumulative health impact on the local community by creating more traffic, parking problems and air pollution.
Ganado’s suggestion that the addition of a “daily average of three cars per minute” will “not cause additional traffic congestion in the area” is unacceptable. On which roads will there be these extra cars? On what studies is this based? An ‘average’ daily increase of 4,320 more car trips sounds like an awful lot for a polluted road network which is nearly gridlocked for much of the day.
On another point, people and local residents are more competent to object than “top real estate agents”, precisely because the matter concerns their own quality of life. To expect an estate agent not to welcome the marketing opportunity offered by this skyscraper would be equivalent to expecting a turkey to vote for Christmas.
This unwelcome gigantic intrusion in an already overbuilt location has been summed up by others as an “invasion of the public domain by taking up airspace that is not rightfully theirs, as the skyline is part of our common heritage”, “magnates setting the agenda” with resultant “widespread concern of the majority that these skyscrapers will have a major impact on Malta as a whole”.
As to Mr Ganado’s objection to the comment “milking the site to its fullest extent”, how many floors more than 38 does it need to qualify as “milking”?
The fundamental issue is this: Nobody is trying to deprive Mr Ganado and his business associates of what is their rightful and reasonable gain, but this does not mean that their pursuit of wealth can impinge on other peoples’ health, quality of life and right to live peacefully in what is left of their once-beautiful surroundings.
If they must build, then this should at least be done, as another correspondent put it, with “sensitivity to our landscape and our heritage” as well to the community.
As the saying goes: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”