“The facts show that the market is rewarding us for having full faith in the product, for our ability to deliver it with excellence and for our faith in this country.  The group was successful in its bid to secure a prime stretch of land enveloped in Malta’s mecca of five-star properties and our own golden mile”. 

In case you’re wondering, that was plucked straight out of db Group’s homepage. It smacks of avarice and shameless greed dressed up in ‘corporate speak’ as progress.  I dare say that Silvio Debono (and his deBonair Group) may soon be the only ones with any faith left in the country. Their belief in the good times rolling is, of course, unsurprising – they’ve successfully secured 35,000 square metres of prime public land  at the knockdown price of a €5 million down payment (and a total of €15 million staggered over a period of seven years).

This will rake in profits well in excess of €100 million in the first three years alone. Not surprising really, when you’re talking prime location (Malta tourism’s ‘Golden Mile’), an uninterrupted sea view and mates’ rates of €50 per square metre. That’s what I spend at the supermarket when I don’t use a trolley.  It would appear that the age of faith and miracles has returned to Malta. No one disputes that the db Group has received extraordinary largesse. Everything else though is hotly disputed. 

 So we’re addressing the issue of public land being transferred, at a fraction of its market value, to a private developer for both lucrative tourism and commercial speculation. Apart from the gross unfairness to other hoteliers and developers, both of whom cannot possibly compete on that kind of unlevel playing field, there’s this other small matter of public land. It’s a national asset that belongs to all of us and as such represents much of our country’s heritage.

Giving it away therefore is virtually stealing from the Maltese people and their future generations. It’s that simple. An area that could have been transformed into a national park of ecological and scientific importance (given the proximity of the subterranean Ħarq Ħammiem cave) will now see a monstrous 38-storey tower, a 17-storey hotel, various restaurants, a casino, a shopping mall, plus office space and an underground car park.   

Let us for a minute consider the implications of this miniature city: the additional burden of a 455-room hotel and God knows how many residential units to an area already bursting at the seams: a place where garbage bags already line pavements for days on end, where more restaurants means more waste and more uneaten food dumped in the street and left to rot.

The issue of garbage, waste and litter is enough to set my teeth on edge, without my having to think of the years of inconvenience and serious discomfort being caused to neighbours from construction debris, dust, noise pollution, litter, cigarette butts and traffic.  In fact, the ensuing pollution and congestion were predicted to be so dire  that a tunnel was proposed to mitigate their effects. That, surely, is a tacit admission that a looming 38-storey tower and 17-storey hotel will have a major negative impact on people’s quality of life, their well-being and even their livelihoods. As one gentleman succinctly pointed out on Facebook: 

This development is a death sentence for many residents

“The area in which this project is to be built has, for decades, been zoned a residential area. People who have lived in this quiet residential zone for years are now facing years of construction, a massive increase in traffic and, for several hundreds, living in its permanent shadow. The inevitable corollary of all of this is that many people will see the value of their property decline. Unlike Silvio Debono, who is already very, very rich, for many, their property might be where the entirety of their finances are tied up.”

In other words, while Silvio Debono is asset-stripping, lining his pockets and making claim to his own ‘golden mile’, 4,000 objectors will have to settle for their ‘green mile’. Yes, this development is a death sentence for many residents, and spells the end of life as they knew it. Whatever the outcome – urban blight or trendy buzz – a permanent 38-storey shadow has now been cast. The people of Pembroke have every right to feel let down, indeed betrayed, by a government whose ‘watered down’ policies have got us to where we are today.  

 I can’t say I was surprised by the outcome of last week’s vote, but (private jets notwithstanding) I was surprised – shall I say shocked? – by one vote in particular. Of the 10 votes in favour of the project, one belonged to Victor Axiaq, the Environment and Resources Authority chairman. 

I know next to nothing about this authority and what it purports to do (or not do)  but it strikes me as odd that an authority whose mission statement is “to safeguard the environment for a sustainable quality of life” should be so dismissive of 4,000 objectors, including environmental organisations and NGOs, and so blithely happy to rely on a phantom tunnel which (1) does not form part of the original application, (2) is not mandatory and (3) may never be built.

Tourism is important to the Maltese economy but not at the cost of selling the family silver. It should respect local conditions and the natural environment, and in time benefit everyone. Malta’s long-term assets are her distinctive authenticity and history. Why let her become a pale imitation of Dubai or Las Vegas? Why build the slums of 2070?

But I’ll let a politician have the last word. Many readers will identify him:

“If public land is going to be delivered on the cheap and under favourable conditions for a tourism project, this has to consist exclusively of a tourism proposal and should not be attached to the additional establishment of residential or commercial development. Land for the latter should be paid for at full market rates.”

Enough said.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece