DB Group reactivating application for St George’s Bay project

The DB Group will be reactivating its application for a permit to construct the City Centre development on the site of the former Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS) at St George’s Bay in St Julian’s.

In a statement on Friday, the company said that a recent court decision to revoke the permit was based on matters that were out of the company’s control and which it had nothing to do with.

“The revocation was based exclusively on one, single point: that the court deemed that a member of the adjudicating Board had a conflict of interest,” the company said.

“Clearly, this had absolutely nothing to do with the DB Group and even less so with the project itself.”

Judge Mark Chetcuti ruled that planning board member Matthew Pace had a conflict of interest because of his involvement in real estate when he voted on the project.

The court said that Pace had a specific impediment, aimed at a particular project in which he had a monetary interest, “which if not actual was certainly potential and this in a realistic, not hypothetical way”.

The DB Group noted that the court had “completely steered clear of the merits of the permit itself”, adding that “at no point did it express a view against it, how it was issued, or about the DB Group itself”.

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“In view of the above, the DB Group is currently reactivating the application for a full permit, with some alterations and rescaling which have been in gestation since the original permit was issued last September,” it said.

Finally, the company insisted that it had always “rigorously” followed all applicable laws and procedures “of every institution involved”.

“We shall continue to do so with rectitude, openness and determination. It is with this same approach that we shall ensure that our Group enjoys its full rights at law, the same ones enjoyed by others.”

The lawsuit which resulted in the revocation of the permit was made possible by a crowdfunding initiative by NGOs, local councils and residents.

The €300 million City Centre project, which includes a 37-storey tower and 17-storey hotel, was approved in September 2018 despite an unprecedented 4,500 objections from the public, local councils and NGOs.

Controversy surrounded the granting of the ITS public land to the DB Group in 2017 for a premium of €15 million spread over seven years.

The government would have also raked in €23.4 million from redeemed leases once the residential apartment are sold.

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