Muscat’s Zonqor moment

Joseph Muscat has crossed a line by insisting on a development which should be automatically refused by any planning institution worthy of its name.

Zonqor is not only outside development zones, but automatically earmarked to form part of a national park. Instead Muscat has decided to reduce the size of the national park by proposing a smaller park. The designation of this land makes it a definitively no-go area for development.

One of Muscat’s strong points has always been his ability to bow to public opinion, but ignoring the vast consensus of civil society – and the largest environmental protest in history – confirms his stubborn commitments to developers, like Sadeen Group, whose heads of agreement has unsurprisingly not yet seen the light of day.

It’s been two years since his election on a platform that included a commitment against extending building zones; and yet he justifies the controversy over the proposed ‘American University’ (AUM) at Zonqor as the only ODZ controversy under his watch.

But it’s the evocation of the PN’s extension of building zones in 2006 that is all the more reason to refuse ODZ development. Malta has already lost too much countryside, and his responsibility is to ensure that no further ODZ land is lost.

Not only does Labour’s Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED) pave the way for AUM at Zonqor by stating that ODZ development can be considered if “deemed sustainable”; but the SPED also foresees a Gozo airstrip, a yacht marina, a cruise liner terminal and further development on Comino. Indeed the new laws reverse the most positive aspect of MEPA’s reform in 2010 – banning the authority from sanctioning illegalities on protected sites outside development zones. But the planning laws being changed now are effectively removing the ‘E’ from MEPA’s remit.

Ultimately, if government proceeds on AUM’s development at Zonqor, it will have carte blanche to turn Malta into a Dubai of the Mediterranean. And Muscat ignores an important factor: popular resistance will grow the more stubborn he gets.

I still give Muscat the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure that he will come to realise as Gonzi did in 2008, that the environment matters to a vast segment of the population and that obligations towards developers (Maltese or foreign) will simply bog his government down in a swamp.

Just as Gonzi gave on the Xaghra l-Hamra golf course and put some brakes on development through the MEPA reform that Labour is reversing (Gonzi only did so after blessing infamous 2006 rationalisation – something which is not easily forgotten) Muscat is still in time to change his ways.

If part of the university can be developed inside development zones in Cottonera, why not locate the whole of it there? Why not spread it out in other Maltese towns and villages?

Muscat knows well what kind of tribal partisans will rush to his defence in a showdown with environmentalists over Zonqor or any other ODZ site. But he might also end up politically bruised, alienating people – from all social classes – who value the environment and the common good. Permanently.