The Villa Rosa site is being earmarked for four luxury hotels, together with a convention centre, offices and a language school, according to a presentation delivered to Cabinet in recent weeks.

The presentation convinced Cabinet to give its go-ahead for the area’s local plans to be amended, a process which kicked off on Tuesday, with the Planning Authority launching a public consultation into the matter.

But the project has caused a widespread outcry, with everyone from Pembroke and Swieqi mayors Kaylon Zammit and Noel Muscat to NGOs Moviment Graffitti and il-Kollettiv voicing their objections.

The "concept design" presentation given to ministers, seen by Times of Malta, was created by developers AC Group - led by its founder and developer Anton Camilleri - and Dutch architecture firm UNStudio. 

A who’s who of luxury hotels

The presentation shows that the site’s biggest development, a 39-floor tower just off St George’s Bay, will house a five-star Fairmont hotel.

Just metres away, a five-star Sofitel hotel will be built over 22 floors. Another 22-floor tower will house a four-star hotel run by French hoteliers Mama Shelter.

Further along the bay, the Cresta Quay site will be turned into another five-star hotel, this time run by Emblems Collection, a boutique luxury hotel group.

The plans presented to Cabinet show the precise location of each hotel. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

The Fairmont and Sofitel hotels will be divided by a three-floor convention centre, while the Fairmont will be flanked by ten floors of office space.

Meanwhile, a seven-floor language school, also including office space, will be built next door to the Mama Shelter hotel.

The Villa Rosa building itself, along with its surrounding 9,645 square metre garden, will be retained as a private open space.

High-rises but more open space, developers say

In the presentation, the developers say they want to “shift the building volume” to create a new 7,350 square metre “public piazza” opposite the beach.

In practice, this means that the project will more or less retain a similar overall building mass as the existing footprint allows, only moving this into high-rise buildings, rather than the mix of low and high-density structures currently permitted.

The shaded areas will be built up, developers say. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

Developers say the site's footprint is set to change. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

The project plans feature a total of 25,000 square metres of open space, with most of it, almost 18,000 square metres, for use by hotel guests.

This includes an almost 3,000 square metre patch of land behind the Sofitel hotel that is currently marked as developable land which will be removed from the development zone and used as a private garden.

The public piazza being proposed. A 39-floor tower and two 22-floor towers are just out of eyeshot. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

Five new sub-stations, three-lane service road

The developers say they will pay for five new electricity sub-stations to service the project’s electrical needs.

They are also proposing that a three-lane road be built on private land to be used by the hotels to load and unload material. The road will stretch from behind the language school and Mama Shelter hotel, into part of the public piazza, eventually reaching the Sofitel hotel.

Local plan review suggestions reproduced verbatim by PA

The presentation also appears to feature suggestions for what a review of the local plans should include.

The six-point plan presented seems to have been gleefully received by the PA, which reproduced it almost verbatim in the launch of its public consultation on Tuesday.

This includes reconfiguring the area’s zoning restrictions, revising the maximum building heights, and identifying zones for “higher quality hotels”.

A screenshot of the changes to the local plans, as suggested by the project's developers. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

The presentation makes frequent reference to an unnamed study by HVS, a global consulting firm that specialises in the hospitality industry, to argue for the need for high-quality tourism.

This type of tourism, the presentation argues, “reduces strain on local resources”, “offers better pay and incentivises Maltese workers”, and provides “similar or greater” economic returns than masses of low-cost tourists.

A matrix included in the cabinet presentation makes the case for the planned luxury hotel brands.