Backlash after Pembroke council teams up with db Group for €3 million civic projects

The Pembroke Local Council is planning to build a €3 million civic centre and public garden, but it’s teaming up with db Group to do so.

Council members voted unanimously on an agreement with db Group to build several major community projects. These include a community building with a multipurpose hall, a library, a health clinic and childcare centre, as well as a local garden with underground parking.

Residents are not taking kindly to this news. Db Group is responsible for a major construction project in the area that is already changing the landscape of the residential locality. Most recently, the group applied with the Planning Authority to increase the heights of the two towers being built in the area to 23 and 25 floors, up from 17 and 18.

During the local council meeting, Mayor Kaylon Zammit said the council isn’t interested in taking on costly legal battles with db Group. “The project has already been approved, several legal challenges were mounted by the council, and all were lost. A substantial portion of the development has already been completed,” he said.

Instead, Zammit said the council is deciding to focus on negotiating tangible benefits for residents. “Given current planning policies, which tend to favour the developer’s proposals, the likelihood of success through legal channels is minimal.”

Rafel Grima, a Pembroke resident and local librarian, posted on Facebook that the news left him speechless and annoyed.

“If this isn’t whitewashing, what is? Why should we accept a private company that built such a monstrous project in our locality?” he said. “Many residents and 16,000 people said clearly that they don’t want this project and that db Group isn’t welcome in our locality.”

He also said he wasn’t aware of any consultation held with Pembroke residents before the agreement was signed by the council.

Momentum’s chairperson Arnold Cassola also spoke out on the agreement. “Social, corporate responsibility is a mainstay of serious businesses, but is a €3 million project enough to compensate for the havoc that db Group are wreaking in the St George’s Bay area?”

Questions have been sent to the Pembroke mayor about the community project.

db’s Pembroke Towers

The Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) site in Pembroke was transferred to db Group as part of a controversial land deal approved by parliament in 2017. The agreement granted the company a 99-year concession to redevelop the prime seafront location into a mixed-use project for a total of €60 million, with only €15 million being paid upfront.

Originally, the project was proposed as a 38-storey tower and a 17-storey hotel, but the permit for this development was later revoked by the law courts.

Subsequently, the company put forward new plans in April 2020 that reduced the size of the residential tower to 31 floors.

A few months later the plans were changed again to accommodate two towers—one of 17 floors and another of 18 floors, apart from the hotel. At the time, the db Group said it had “listened and acted” after public and institutional feedback, by voluntarily lowering the height and splitting the original tower into two. The company argued this created larger open spaces, reduced excavation by some 58,000 cubic metres, integrated historic structures, and lessened disruption to surrounding residents and traffic.

This proposal was granted approval by the Planning Board in 2021 by a slim majority of five votes to three.

In June this year, the db Group applied to add seven and six floors respectively to each of the two towers currently under construction.

This will mean that the proposed towers will increase in height from the approved 17 and 18 floors to 23 and 25 floors, respectively. No additional height is being proposed for the approved 12-storey hotel, which will be a Hard Rock franchise.

If approved, these changes will result in an additional 82 apartments over and above the approved 162.