A bipartisan parliamentary committee unanimously agreed to amend the controversial Fort Chambray concession to allow extensive parts of the site to be transferred to new investors during a committee meeting held on Wednesday.
MPs from both sides of the house approved changes to the original 2005 concession that effectively means that the original concessionaire - Gozitan businessman Michael Caruana - can sell the concession to a group of unnamed investors who are reportedly in negotiations over the site.
The parts of the concession that can be transferred include an almost 37,000sqm stretch of land to be used for a hotel and residences and a further 21,000sqm tract of land that includes several structures of heritage value, including a polverista (gunpowder magazine), a knights’ bakery and knights barracks.
Speaking during the committee meeting, Lands Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi said the amendment to the concession would also serve to clarify how the development will be carried out and how fortifications will be restored. There will also be clearer obligations linked to the building of a hotel, which will need to be completed within 48 months of a development permit being granted.
A project mired in controversy
Controversy over the land at Fort Chambray has now entered its third decade.
The site was first granted to Italian businessman Roberto Memmo on a 99-year lease in 1993.
The transfer of land took place under a cloud of suspicion, later becoming the subject of a 1998 book authored by eventual Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who alleged irregularities in the award of the concession.
Memmo’s plans to turn the site into a hotel, develop 236 residential units and transform the barracks into a commercial centre languished for years, with the government eventually terminating the agreement and transferring the land to Caruana in 2005 for an amount believed to be in the region of Lm3.7million (roughly €8.6million).
Caruana was given the land on an 87-year lease that was to expire in April 2092.
At the time, he told Times of Malta of his plans to turn Fort Chambray into “an internationally renowned landmark”, with then-Minister Austin Gatt reassuring parliament the developers would face daily Lm100 (€233) fines if they did not stick to stipulated timelines, with the government holding the right to dissolve the contract.
Almost two decades on, parts of the 17th-century fort lie derelict, with sections appearing to be at risk of collapse.
Meanwhile, much of the promised development - from the residential apartments to a planned four-star hotel - remain either unfinished or never even got off the ground.
Two planning applications filed last year to demolish 63 unfinished apartments and to construct a hotel and more apartments appeared to reignite plans for the site.
Unfinished buildings, need for ‘urgent intervention’
Speaking during the parliamentary committee meeting, Lands Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi admitted that some construction works had begun but were left unfinished for many years “with no realistic plan for their completion”.
Some restoration works on parts of the historical structures on the land were also carried out, Zrinzo Azzopardi said, but the fortifications require “urgent intervention”.
Given the current state of the site and the interventions required for the site “to reach its potential”, the government was asking for the amendments to be approved, he said. The duration of the lease will remain unchanged.
The two PN MPs sitting on the committee, Stanley Zammit and Alex Borg, agreed, saying that the Opposition “wants this project to continue and be completed”.