The developers behind nine large projects in Paceville are not satisfied with the amount of “planning potential” being offered to them in the town’s controversial master plan.
“They are basically saying, ‘If you want to use some of our land to create new open spaces, you have to give us more, more development potential’,” Planning Authority executive chairman Johann Buttigieg told The Sunday Times of Malta.
According to the master plan, Paceville’s “baseline situation” – the starting point for the plan – is already based primarily on nine large development proposals which have already been submitted to, or discussed with, the Planning Authority.
The developments include the Corinthia, Institute of Tourism Studies, Villa Rosa, St George’s Park, Westin Dragonara, Portomaso, Mercury House and Business Centre. The Sunday Times of Malta columnist Claire Bonello writes today that this shows the master plan was drawn up “specifically to accommodate a gang of nine speculators”.
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Mr Buttigieg said that the document had highlighted these sites as they were the only ones that fit the bill: “There are no other sites, to my knowledge, that hold such a substantial area of land which can be regenerated and used to the benefit of the entire area. That is why they were identified as part of the master plan,” he said.
They were also the only large sites in either single or group ownership, he added. If the master plan was to meet the government’s objective of regenerating the area and creating large open spaces, it would therefore have to incorporate these sites, he said.
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Asked if the authorities were in negotiations with the developers over the amount of “planning potential” they would receive in exchange for part of their property, Mr Buttigieg said their feedback would go through the same system applied for all stakeholders. “There is no negotiation with the developers. We told them what we told everybody: make your submissions and your proposals, and then all these will be analysed,” he said.
PA chairman Johann Buttigieg has insisted the master plan is not a fait accompli.“I can assure you that this plan was not received favourably by the Paceville developers themselves,” Mr Buttigieg said. Developed by consultants Mott Macdonald and Broadway Malyan, the 200-page document has been the subject of much controversy, with residents, business owners and local councillors raising a number of objections to its proposals.
“This is the whole hullabaloo with the plan. We have developers requesting more, NGOs requesting less, property owners who don’t want developments in front of them but in front of others. We have operators saying ‘Yes, we need the area to be improved’, others saying ‘Okay, but not on my land’. There are a lot of different considerations,” he said.
Dr Bonello meanwhile, also argued that since the master plan had been drawn up “with these nine developments specifically in mind”, they had essentially already been given the go-ahead for construction. “In a nutshell, it means the applications of nine developers are being given priority over long-term residents and businesses in the area,” she said.
Asked about this, Mr Buttigieg said the master plan was “not a fait accompli”. “We will have to go to Parliament at least twice with changes following public feedback on this plan. This master plan is a document for an initial discussion and not cast in stone.”
Mr Buttigieg described the master plan as “one of the most complicated plans we have ever had”. This, he assured, was “because we are doing things the way we should do, and everything is being done in a very transparent way”.