Planning Authority rejects Hondoq project after 14 years

After a 14-year saga, the Planning Authority has unanimously refused the application for the Hondoq ir-Rummien project development.

The project was to include a deluxe 5-star hotel with 110 bedrooms, 20 self-catering villas, 60 apartments serviced by the hotel, 203 apartments, 1,249 underground parking spaces, a village centre – which was to include a church and shops – and a yacht marina for approximately 100 to 150 berths.

The developers contested the fairness of the hearing and complained that they only had 10 days to reply to the case officer report, but PA chairman Vince Cassar countered that the developers had 17 days to prepare – and not 10 – as the hearing had already been postponed.

The PA’s decision was welcomed by representatives of NGOs and residents who attended the sitting held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta.

The PA was previously scheduled to announce its decision at the same time as it pronounced itself on the high-rise tower development in Sliema and Mriehel, both of which decisions have been postponed after the courts approved the applicants’ request for a prohibitory injunction.

The Hondoq development was deemed by the Planning Directorate to be in breach of the Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development as it constituted “a dense urban development” in a “coastal rural area.”

It was also in breach of the SPED’s vision of Gozo as an “ecological island.”

Had the project been approved, traffic passing through the small village o Qala would have doubled.

During the sitting, Architect Edward Bencini insisted that the PA board should assess plans presented in 2011, which had been rejected by former CEO Ian stafrace because – at the time – the authority had insisted that those constituted radical changes and required the filing of a new application.

The 2011 proposal did not include a yacht marina, was limited to villas around a lagoon on the site of the former quarry and reduced the build up footprint by half.

PA CEO Johann Buttigieg agreed with his predecessor that the changes required the presentation of a new application and noted that the developers had lost an appeal they had lodged against Stafrace’s decision.

But the developers insisted that the sentence handed down also stated that the PA board should take a decision on whether the 2011 plans should be considered or not.  

Cassar immediately called for a vote on the admissibility of the 2011 plans, and the board vote unanimously to not consider the 2011 plans.

The CEO said that what was at stake was whether Hondoq ir-Rummien should be developed or not.

Bencini pointed out that the developer had spent more than €1 million on studies on an area which the 2006 local plan earmarked for tourism and marine development.

The project had been consistently opposed by Front Harsien Hondoq, led by campaigner and Labour councillor Paul Buttigieg and backed by all environmental NGOs.  

Buttigieg represented the Qala local council on the PA board.

Astrid Vella, on behalf of Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, called on the state to include Hondoq ir-Rummien in the public domain.  

In 2011, under Petra Bianchi, the authority’s Environment Protection Directorate had already called for a refusal of the project.

MEPA’s Planning Directorate was just about to issue the final case officer report calling for a refusal of the project when the developers presented a set of new plans which retained the residential aspect of the project but dropped the yacht marina, replacing it with a swimming lagoon.

But the PA had refused to consider these changes saying that this would require a new application.

When the project was inititally proposed, then Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono had described it as beneficial to Gozo.

The 2006 local plan had designated the area for marine and tourism development but imposed strict limits on any development.  

But in a clear indication that the project was heading nowhere, then parliamentary secretary Mario de Marco, when asked about the project, replied that “our environment is too small to afford to suffer any more mistakes than we have already committed in the past, sometimes even in the name of tourism and progress”.