Updated Thursday 2.35pm with MIDI statement
An application by Transport Malta to construct marina offices and commercial outlets in Gżira’s seafront garden has prompted environmental NGOs to object to another bite into a “vital” recreational area.
Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar slammed the building of such a structure in a century-old public garden for “violating every norm of town planning”.
It said the proposal breaches the North Harbour Local Plan, “which recognises recreational facilities are an essential part of community development and safeguards land for this use”.
A plan of the area that will be ‘lost’.FAA also expressed fear that the permit is just a “facade” to build a restaurant in a prime site, Ġnien il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa, citing similar examples including three in the Pietà area alone.
One of them is the historic customs house by the pinetum. Other capitanerie went down the eatery route each time, FAA said, listing Mġarr Harbour, in Gozo and on Manoel Island itself.
“Since the upgrading of the yacht marina is to the benefit of the MIDI project, the capitaneria should be on its land and should not deprive the public of its garden,” FAA said.
The application, PA 02845/21, which is awaiting recommendation, is also to build storage in connection with the yacht marina, public toilets and showers, retail premises and a catering outlet, together with an outdoor area and public roof garden. But FAA insists the garden is vital to the health of residents in surrounding areas, where open spaces are already “extremely low”, according to the local plan.
The whole promenade has been taken over by commercial entities, FAA continued – the garden is the “only intact lung” of the over-exploited town of Gżira.
Environmental conservation organisation Inħobbu l-Gżira insisted that the garden is a public open space by law.
“It should remain so. We do not need more restaurants and shops. We need greenery and places to relax in nature,” the group of citizens opposed to MIDI’s development plans for Manoel Island said.
It called on the public to show its anger at the “theft of a precious garden” by sending objections to the Planning Authority before the closing date tomorrow.
Ġnien il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa was already the subject of a long legal battle over a fuel station to be relocated there from a site just outside Manoel Island.
With the petrol station now approved, additional buildings in this area would destroy the garden forever, the NGOs warned.
Back in October, the Court of Appeal had thrown out the Gżira council’s plea to safeguard it. About 4,000 people had signed a petition opposing the project.
However, the local council is not objecting to the proposed marina development, saying Transport Malta had an agreement with the marina concessionaire to embellish the garden at their own expense.
The hotly contested decision on the fuel station means 930 square metres of garden will be sacrificed to make way for it while the new proposal will bite off another 500-square-metre chunk.
But Gżira mayor Conrad Borg Manché said he had pushed for the public roof garden, which meant the area was not losing its footprint. “We took what we could from it,” he said, adding that, anyway, public toilets were needed.
The project was always part of the tender to privatise the marina and it did not make sense to object, Borg Manché said, adding that the relocation of the fuel station would cause more harm.
In a statement, MIDI said TM's application is entirely unrelated to MIDI’s project for the development of Manoel Island.
"This application is linked to the concession granted to a private operator to manage the Gżira garden’s yacht marina and the FAA is fully aware that MIDI is in no way connected to this concession."
It said the FAA appear to be intent on misrepresenting the facts with the sole aim of discrediting MIDI and undermining its development plans for Manoel Island.