Environmental organisations have condemned imminent plans to allow residences to be built on the site of the former Ħal Ferħ tourism complex at Golden Bay.
In a statement ahead of a decision by the parliamentary environment committee on Monday, the groups said the plans went against the terms of the original land-grant for the site and were "intended to lull the general public into gradually accepting real estate manoeuvres that, in 2014, would have been rejected out of hand".
The proposed change is a draft amendment to the 2006 north west local plan and the 2008 Ħal Ferh development brief to include permanent residential development among the list of acceptable uses.
While the 2009 emphyteutical deed granting use of the land to the Corinthia Hotels Group holding company limited use of the site only to tourism, it included a mechanism allowing part to be converted to residential use.
However, eNGOs argue that the Planning Authority reiterated its position against residential development several times in the years since.
"Everybody knows that the site is surrounded by pristine agricultural land. Sacrificing part of it in the interest of the tourism industry was a bitter pill that had to be swallowed in the economic interest of the country," the groups said.
"There is no reason why we should accept that permanent residency should encroach on this site. We decry this proposal of the PA as the thin end of a wedge which will gradually see the whole site developed into a permanent residential settlement, with all the infrastructural impacts that a permanent residential community generates."
The NGOs said it was "unacceptable" for the Planning Authority to simply accept instructions from government "without so much as a whimper of protest".
They said the promise of limits on the number of residences that would be built - 25 villas on 9,000 square metres of land - were meaningless when promises of no permanent residences whatsoever had already been broken.
"We are calling out these tactics, tactics that have been used elsewhere. We are demanding that the Government stop calling the shots in the Planning Authority, on behalf of a specific lobby interest, rather than in the overall economic well-being of the country - which includes restraining development in rural areas," the groups said.
The statement was signed by Din l-Art Ħelwa, Archaeological Society of Malta, Nature Trust - FEE Malta, Flimkien għal Ambjent Ajħar, Friends of the Earth, and BirdLife Malta.