Torpedoing Project Green: The nonsensical sale of undeveloped public land in Mellieħa

Project Green is the flagship investment programme in quality of life of the Abela administration for the next seven years.

Its noble aim is to expand existing open spaces and create new ones with particular emphasis on gardens and parks within built-up areas.

Project Green’s activities will range from the very ambitious large-scale projects to shift some urban main roads below ground to create open spaces above them, to smaller-scale transformation of disused plots of land in urban areas into gardens and places of relaxation.

Government’s commitment to improve quality of life by investing in open spaces is also backed by a pledge to spend €700 million over seven years.

But in what appears to be a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, all the noble aims of Project Green risk being torpedoed by government’s decision to sell off by tender a tract of undeveloped land in Mellieħa’s Tal-Qortin area.

On the one hand, government wants to create green open spaces in urban areas, and on the other it intends depriving the Tal-Qortin community from such an opportunity.

Kudos to Nationalist MP Ivan Castillo who flagged this contradiction. He is right.

If Robert Abela is serious about improving the quality of life, this nonsensical move should be stopped immediately and action taken to transfer that land into Project Green’s portfolio

The reason for the sale of this tract of land cannot be justified by some greater economic, social or infrastructural good. Whoever gets a hold of it will simply turn it into apartments. With the PA, last year approving an average of 26 dwellings every day, this country is not facing a shortage of housing units.

There simply is no justification why this tract of public land should be handed over to the private sector. Furthermore, a botanist speaking to MaltaToday said the area contains endemic and indigenous plant species, some of which are protected at law.

But it appears government already has a buyer in mind. The tender document states that the land could be subject to the right of first refusal.

Unknown to many, until The Shift uncovered the ruse, is the fact that two well-known developers – GAP and Ballut Blocks – own a plot of land in the middle of this undeveloped public land, which suggests they could be the beneficiaries of the right of first refusal. Acquiring the rest of the surrounding land will allow them to make much more than a neat profit from the sale of apartments.

In the best of hypothesis, the Lands Ministry captained by Silvio Schembri is unaware or is disinterested in what the Environment Ministry captained by Miriam Dalli is doing to green urban areas. In the worst of hypothesis, government’s overarching aim to create more green spaces is being knowingly sacrificed for the benefit of private sector profiteering.

I would not want to speculate whether government's decision so far is underpinned by more sinister motives. I certainly hope not but at a very basic level this incident is sending the wrong message about Project Green and government’s fanfare on greening urban areas.

Nothing less than withdrawing the tender and safeguarding this patch of land from development should suffice.

If Robert Abela is serious about improving the quality of life, this nonsensical move should be stopped immediately and action taken to transfer that land into Project Green’s portfolio.

And when this issue is put to bed, he should get his ministers around a table and give them a lecture on government’s overarching plan to green urban areas unless this is just a greenwashing exercise.