On Wednesday, a court shot down an appeal mounted by activist groups and Pembroke residents to stop db Group from developing the site of the former ITS campus into a massive commercial and tourism hub. 

This means that the group now has the legal go-ahead to proceed with its approved plans to excavate the site and develop three towers that will rise to 17, 16 and 12 floors respectively, in a project that will include a hotel and retail space as well as high-end apartments. 

Objectors who have been fighting the development for years are massively disappointed. Pembroke residents say the project is located in a residential area that will be overrun by commercial activity, while others have expressed concern that the already congested road network cannot cope with the increased activity the project will bring with it. 

Some residents will also now have to live in the very literal shadow that the enormous building will be casting on their homes. 

How did we get here? 

The story begins eight years ago while the site - a prime piece of public land - is still occupied by the Institute of Tourism Studies campus. In 2015, state agency Projects Malta put out a call for proposals to transform it into a mixed tourist and leisure development.

The Seabank Consortium emerges as the only bidder and a year later is nominated as the preferred bidder with a €17 million bid. 

The consortium is largely fronted by db Group, the company that groups businessman Silvio Debono’s business ventures under one roof. The group has a strong foothold in the entertainment industry, it runs hotels like the Seabank and the San Antonio and operates international franchises Hard Rock Cafe and Starbucks in Malta. 

In 2017 an agreement is finalised - db Group are given the title to the ITS land for 99 years in exchange for €60 million and a new campus for ITS in Smart City, Kalkara. 

ITS, the Institute of Tourism Studies, is evicted from its long-time home and moved to a temporary campus at the Aviation Park complex in Luqa. They are still in Luqa and the promised Smart City campus has yet to be built. 

That same year, db Group file their first planning application for the site with a 37-storey tower and a 17-storey hotel. 

Towering backlash 

The public seems greatly unhappy with news of the db tower and the planning application attracts over 4,500 objections - a figure that is considered something of a record at the time. The charge is led by a number of activist groups like Moviment Graffiti and the project is also opposed by the Pembroke council. 

It doesn’t stop there, residents organise a protest and people turn out in droves. They ask the developers not to “bury them alive”. 

On June 20, 2018, the Planning Authority votes to approve the application in front of a hall packed with objectors, with 10 votes in favour and four votes against. 

There is an uproar in the hall and activists vow that the fight will not stop there. 

The PA’s private jet 

The vote itself is not the only controversy of the day and three months later we learn of the bizarre tale of Jacqueline Gili, the PA board member who would have been absent on the day of the vote on the ITS site had she not been flown to the island by a private jet to attend. 

Gili was on a family holiday in Sicily on the day the vote was scheduled to be taken, however, the PA decided that her attendance was crucial to the decision and forked out €8,750 to fly her to Malta and back, an expense that was cleared by then PA executive chairman Johann Buttigieg. 

Gili remained silent throughout the hearing, voted in favour of the project and was promptly flown back to Sicily. The year prior, Gili had been absent for 29 of the 75 votes the board took. 

The board member who stood to gain 

NGOs and residents take the matter to court for the first time and in 2019 it rules in their favour on one key issue. The court finds that a member of the PA board, Matthew Pace, would have stood to benefit from the approval of the project. 

Real estate company Remax had been advertising luxury apartments for sale at the City Centre project long before any permits for it could be approved. At the time, Pace was a franchise owner of Remax Alliance Swieqi, which shared a database and website with Remax Malta. 

The court found that any property agent who managed to clinch a deal for City Centre would stand to receive a commission, irrespective of whether they had been directly involved in its advertising or not. 

Therefore, the court reasoned that Pace was in a position to receive a commission, through his real estate agency, on a project that had not yet been built and which he had a say in approving. 

Pace’s was one of the 10 votes in favour of the project. He is currently facing charges of money laundering in court and is expected to go to trial. 

Ping-pong plans

So the court cancels db Group’s first permit, vitiated by Pace’s vote, and forces them back to the drawing board. 

Initially plans for the residential tower are reduced by some seven storeys, but the project's detractors called it a public relations exercise that failed to materially address the quality of life concerns the proposed project would have on the residents. 

The project is then redesigned, with the now 31-floor tower split into two towers of 16 and 17 storeys each and the hotel reduced from a height of 17 storeys to 12 storeys. The company says that this reduces the project's footprint by 50,000 square metres and increases public open spaces by 40%. 

The planning process from then on is fairly straightforward. The Environment and Resources Authority approves an environmental impact assessment for the project and the planning directorate recommends the project for approval. In 2021, the PA board votes to approve the project again with only a slight majority - four votes in favour and three votes against.

Subsequent appeals by objectors are not successful and the process culminates in Wednesday’s judgement, giving the final green light for the plans approved in 2021 to go ahead.