Updated 4.35pm
Calls for the Prime Minister to revoke a controversial agreement for a 109-unit apartment complex in Mellieħa Heights have intensified following his recent comments.
Robert Abela acknowledged the Mellieħa Heights controversy and told Times of Malta that publicly owned green spaces should not be tendered for development unless they serve a social purpose.
“I had said that where there is this type of land, unless it is needed for social reasons, issuing a tender [to develop] should be avoided,” Abela said, following revelations that T&S Property Holdings had obtained planning permission for the project.
The government had sold the 4,000-square-metre plot to T&S Property Holdings on a 50-year perpetual lease with an annual payment of €380,000. The deal allows the lease to be redeemed.
Mellieħa mayor Gabriel Micallef, a vocal critic of the project, has sent a letter to Abela urging him to “put his words into action”. Micallef called for the agreement to be revoked and the land repurposed as a community project.
“As Prime Minister, you hold the power and the moral responsibility to rectify this injustice by using the law to expropriate this unspoiled land and return it to the public,” Micallef wrote in his letter.
Speaking to Times of Malta, Micallef said Mellieħa lacks untouched green spaces and proposed turning the site into a park or garden with a reading area for residents. The Mellieħa council will be ready to take this land under its care,” he said.
Opposition to the project came to a head in October, when residents and council members joined a protest against it. Critics argue that the project contradicts the government’s stated goals of preserving green spaces.
T&S Property Holdings has defended the project, citing its designation as a development site since 1965. However, Micallef dismissed the 2006 local plans that reaffirmed the zoning as “outdated.”
Meanwhile, the NGO Il-Kollettiv insisted the government already has the power to revoke the Mellieħa Heights agreement. Calling for accountability within the Planning Authority, the activist group questioned how T&S Property Holdings secured planning permission “in record time” of just two months.
Il-Kollettiv has also highlighted another development in Mellieħa involving a 26-room guesthouse and 28 apartments. The land for that project was sold for €151,000 under an emphyteusis agreement, which allows the lease to be redeemed within 15 years. The NGO noted that the architect is Gilbert Bartolo, brother of former tourism minister Clayton Bartolo.
Il-Kollettiv said it has urged the National Audit Office to expand its investigation to include both developments in light of these concerns.
PN MPs Robert Cutajar and Ivan Castillo, as well as then-PL MEP Cyrus Engerer, have all previously backed the Mellieħa Heights residents’ calls not to give away the land.
A spokesperson at the Office of the Prime Minister told Times of Malta that Abela stood by what he said last week outside parliament.