Publicly owned green spaces should not be tendered for development in the future, Robert Abela has said following controversy about a large apartment block being built on vacant state-owned land in Mellieħa.
Abela said he was keen to avoid tenders like that awarded in Mellieħa, given the strength of Malta’s real estate market.
The government sold the plot of land in question to T&S Property Holdings on a 50-year perpetual revisable lease against an annual payment of €380,000 that can eventually be redeemed.
T&S Property Holdings obtained planning permission to build a 109-unit apartment block on the site this week.
“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 the decision.
Where possible, the government should develop these areas into open green spaces for the community to enjoy.
Abela said the property market in Malta is very strong, so “I asked if it still makes sense for government land to be given out for private development”.
The government has announced plans to make similar parcels of land in four localities available to Project Green, the state agency tasked with urban greening projects. Those four sites have a combined value of €20 million.
Abela noted that this had never happened before, when it was standard practice to give out publicly owned land for real estate development.
“This case (the Mellieħa development) was preceded by hundreds of other tenders that gave out land for development from the private sector,” he said, noting similar cases all across the country.
He said that the Lands Authority has been given direction to avoid giving out tenders for large development projects in the future.
Why is the Mellieħa mega block so controversial?
The project first caught public attention in 2023, when the government sold the plot of land, with an estimated market value of over €12m, to the developers on a 50-year perpetual revisable emphyteusis against an annual payment of €380,000.
The deal stipulated that the winning bidder could redeem the emphyteusis within the first 15 years after a revision according to the rate of inflation
Residents filed a parliamentary petition urging the Lands Authority to reverse its decision to give the land away, with PN MPs Robert Cutajar and Ivan Castillo, as well as then-PL MEP Cyrus Engerer backing residents’ calls.
Last month, residents and NGO group Il-Kollettiv took to the streets to demand plans be scrapped, describing it as a “concrete trophy” and saying that the project would rob them of a rare urban green space.
Both Mellieħa mayor Gabriel Micallef and deputy mayor Matthew Borg Cuschieri backed the residents’ protest.
But developers T&S Property Holdings pushed on with plans to build 23 residential units on each of its ground, first, second, and third floors, for a total of 92 apartments, together with 17 penthouses and 171 basement garages.
On Wednesday, Abela said a Project Green garden is planned in the area.
He also said that the land was tendered out for a fair price that reflects market value.