WATCH | Pembroke residents choke under db Group’s rising towers

Julia*, a Pembroke resident, used to suffer a bad asthma attack once every four years or so. But ever since db Group started works on its City Centre project, she now has to resort to steroids for attacks she gets every six months.  

“I had to increase treatment. I’m buying the best treatment out of my own pocket since other treatment isn’t working well on me,” she says. 

A neighbour of hers, Jeannette*, has a relative with two small children who are also bearing the brunt of the construction works. “The number of times they’ve had to be taken to a paediatrician with a cough... it’s non-stop.” 

Pembroke residents have seen a dramatic change to their home town because of this project. What was once a family-oriented town, Pembroke now has a large, grey construction project towering over it, and it will only get bigger as works continue. The final product will be two 17- and 18-storey towers housing apartments and a Hard Rock hotel, unless more floors are added. 

Several residents describe to MaltaToday their experience living in what has become “an open-air construction site”.  

“It’s a major inconvenience. The sound of trucks at 3am, 4am unloading heavy machinery. So much dust you can barely open a window. And the influx this project will create... I don’t know how Pembroke will cope with the traffic that will be generated,” Jeannette tells me. 

Residents know that this is just the start of their troubles. Karl Camilleri, who is also an architect, says the locality already struggles with the chaos of St George’s Bay, a nearby touristic area full of nightlife. With more development projects in the pipeline for the area, such as the Villa Rosa plans, he and other residents describe their situation as a “nightmare”.  

Kristy* describes how mixers drive into the area day and night, parking in the middle of two-way streets and obstructing traffic. These mixers keep their engines on all night long so that the works can be carried out quickly. “They’re building a storey a week! This is a huge trauma.” 

Apart from the dust and machinery, the project itself is a major eyesore. Julia calls it “ugly”. Kristy says it was “overwhelming”. Karl describes it as “out of context”. And Jeannette: “It’s phallic.” 

The City Centre project promises to be a major development. Built on the site of a former tourism school, the mixed-use development will house sky villas, a rooftop pool, residential units, a shopping mall, as well as restaurants and retail brand outlets. Pembroke has never had such a large development in its territory, and residents are just as concerned with what happens once the project is finalised. 

“It’s a ripple effect on the whole community,” Camilleri says. “Our planning system tends to view huge projects like this in isolation, but their effect on neighbouring towns and villages, and even hotels in the area. But the effect will be huge for us residents.”  

Residents put up a fight over the years. Over 14,000 objections had been submitted to the Planning Authority during the three representation periods for the project. The local councils of Pembroke, Swieqi and St Julian’s had also filed objections, as did several environmental and cultural NGOs. But with the project approved and works half-way to completion, there is a bitter sense among residents that all their work was for nothing. 

Db Group put up their own fight for the project too. When the Planning Authority first approved a version of the project in 2018, db Group organised a transport service for a number of their employees to attend the six-hour board meeting. The company had also embarked on an aggressive PR campaign.  

“10 years of battle for nothing. They were too powerful,” Jeannette says with an air of resignation. 

Residents are even less impressed by their local council, which they say abandoned them on this project after securing a deal with the developers to build several community projects. 

“At least the local council should stand up for its residents,” Camilleri says. “Db gave the council a gift, or ‘contribution’, for a community centre, but the local council doesn’t have the power to accept the money. So apart from the fact that the council went behind our backs and didn’t defend us, it did something that, in the eyes of the law, shouldn’t even happen.” 

A Pembroke community centre, db’s ‘whitewash’ 

This summer, Pembroke’s local council 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 did not take kindly to this news. During a heated council meeting, residents presented a petition expressing “anger and frustration” over what they described as secretive negotiations carried out without any public consultation.  

Residents accused the council of betraying the community’s trust by holding closed-door meetings with the developers.  

The letter, signed by dozens of residents, called for full disclosure of all meetings, correspondence, and agreements between the council and db Group. It also demanded a formal guarantee that no future discussions with private developers take place without public involvement.  

Citing the council’s “blatant lack of transparency,” the petition declared that residents had lost confidence in councillors to represent them during the Planning Authority hearing for application PA 3218/25—a new application filed by the db Group this year to add seven more storeys to one tower and six more floors to the other. Instead, they requested that a resident nominee be appointed to speak on behalf of the community.  

Residents also criticised the council for holding private meetings with select individuals and families to explain the deal, calling it a “divide-and-rule tactic” aimed at justifying the agreement. They demanded a single public meeting open to all Pembroke residents. 

Pembroke Mayor Kaylon Zammit has defended the council’s decision to reach a deal with the db Group, insisting it is in the best interest of the community. 

He had told MaltaToday last August that after db’s mega-project was approved, the local council moved to “ensure that Pembroke residents gain the best possible benefits”. 

“This responsible and forward-looking approach has been backed unanimously by the Pembroke Local Council and will help us sustain our priority of delivering positive outcomes, even in challenging circumstances, to our residents and our community,” Zammit had said. 

City Centre project: A history 

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 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.  

*Names with an asterisk near them have been changed to protect the identity of the residents