The residents of St Julian’s, Paceville, Swieqi, Pembroke, Gżira and Tigné are being subjected to all the abuses that arrogant developers of high-rises bring with them.
The residents of Marsa, Qawra and Mrieħel are still not fully conscious of what is going to hit them, since their towns have also been designated as high-rise areas.
A few years ago, when discussing high-rises, Parliament had defined “high-rise” as being over 10 storeys. Sliema was left out of the high-rise area, so much so that the rat-race started to lead to additional storeys being added to the existing eight-storey height – to keep the existing buildings ‘low-rise’.
Yet, even this supposed rule is being blatantly broken: just over a year ago, the Sliema Hotel, which is not in a designated high-rise area, was granted permission to increase its height to 14 storeys. Now, the owners of the Marina Hotel, also not in a designated high-rise area, are proposing building a 14-storey building, basically next to Nazzarenu church, at the Ferries in Sliema.
It seems that many in Malta are ready to flout the law, left, right and centre. And the law is so very accommodating since money makes all this possible.
Money has indeed made it all possible for the db Group’s City Centre project. But the battle on this issue is indeed not over. Our forthcoming appeal against the Planning Authority’s decision will tackle the flagrant abuse of planning issues.
Here, instead, I deal with the now confirmed issue that the government-db contract has been vitiated, it being a clear example of hidden State aid.
On September 22 last, at the Planning Authority hearing, I had warned the board that the European Commission was considering if the sale of the ITS land to the db Group at such a ridiculous price was hidden State aid.
The db Group should cease all works until it hands over to the government the €120-140 million that it has been ‘gifted’ by Joseph Muscat and his associates
The board did not even bother to listen and they actually ignored me, just as they ignored more than 30,000 residents of Pembroke, Swieqi and St Julian’s, as well as the over 4,000 objections. Now, less than a month later, the European Commission has clearly spoken: if the land was not sold at market prices, that constitutes State aid.
In fact, through the Greens in the European Parliament, Alternattiva Demokratika and I asked the European Commission if the transfer of public land to the db private real estate company was compatible with State aid rules and whether this constituted a distortion of competition.
We informed them that in February 2017 the Maltese government had transferred 24,000 square metres of public land at the prime seafront location of St George’s Bay to db San Ġorġ Property Ltd in return for a total of €15 million payable over a span of seven years. No interest will be charged. No formal tender was issued, as per EU procurement regulations, but only a request for proposals.
The market value of the site in question is quoted, in the government’s own master plan drafted by KPMG, as being that of €8,500 per square metre, i.e. €204 million for the land in question, as opposed to the €15 million down payment price, and a few tens of millions over many years, negotiated by the Maltese government.
The answer from European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager is clear and unequivocal. First of all, we learned that the transfer of the ITS area in St George’s Bay to the db Group has not yet been notified to the European Commission by the Maltese authorities.
This is very strange: how is it that a deal concluded over nine months ago has not been notified to the European Commission for its scrutiny? Despite this, Commissioner Verstagen was very vocal about what constitutes State aid. While she noted that, in principle, the mere fact that no public tender was carried out is not sufficient enough to conclude that such a transfer constitutes State aid, if the land in question was not sold by the Maltese government at the prevailing market price, then there is no doubt that this constitutes State aid.
Which means that the db Group should cease all works immediately until it hands over to the Maltese government the €120-140 million that it has been ‘gifted’ by Joseph Muscat and his associates.
Victor Axiak, Clayton Bartolo, Joseph Brincat, Desiree Cassar, Elizabeth Ellul, Timothy Gambin, Jacqueline Gili, Simone Mousu, Matthew Pace and Ivan Tabone: you ignored us thousands of objectors and residents and dismissed us like a Gozo fly.
The 10 of you are personally responsible for the social and environmental disaster that you have provoked.
Arnold Cassola is former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman and former secretary general of the European Green Party.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece