WATCH | MDA President: Graffitti associates asked me for €1.2 million to withdraw planning application

Malta Development Association President Michael Stivala has accused associates of Moviment Graffitti of asking him a sum of €1.2 million to withdraw an application for a hotel in Sliema.

The claim was made on TVM’s XTRA hosted by Saviour Balzan in a debate against Andre Callus from Moviment Graffitti.

Callus was speaking about an application which Stivala had submitted and the Planning Authority had approved.

The application proposed the demolition of an existing building in Parisio Street and Moroni Street in Sliema, for an 11-storey structure which included a gym, spa, pool, with nine floors of hotel accommodation and a restaurant.

Sliema residents, with environmental NGOs, had caught wind of the proposed development, and protested heavily against it, until the court had revoked the tribunal’s decision, and said that the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal had acted beyond its powers.

“There were many commercial interests involved in the case. Someone made a €9M offer and [Moviment Graffitti] were speaking on their behalf,” Stivala claimed.

Callus immediately denied the allegations, challenging Stivala to name the people he was making the claim about, even threatening him with libel.

The MDA president also said people have teamed up with the NGO in its appeals campaigns to target him and other individual developers, suggesting it was being used for malicious reasons.

Stivala also accused Moviment Graffitti of abusing the current appeal system through their lawyer Claire Bonello.

“When the Chief Justice asked the government to reform the appeal law, that was a strategic move against me, from Moviment Graffitti, by their lawyer. This means that their own lawyer is abusing the system,” he said.

Planning law reform

Speaking on government’s planning bills, Andre Callus said it was not a reform, but a proposal to accommodate developers.

“Michael, you did not participate in writing the reform, you dictated it,” Callus noted, saying Stivala’s and developer Joseph Portelli’s complaints were “conveniently solved” in the new bill.

The MDA President denied the allegation, insisting the association voiced its approval to the majority of the changes due to the excess bureaucracy in current law.

Callus said the issues go beyond being environmental, but also concern justice, as people’s voices in the courts will be silenced. “With what they are proposing, they will dissolve all rules and safeguards.”

 During the programme, Culture Minister Owen Bonnici and Planning shadow minister Stanley Zammit also debated the bills.

“This is not a reform, but a stop-gap exercise,” he said.

Acknowledging that certain aspects of the bills would make sense after some tweaking, he said other parts were “unacceptable”.

Bonnici on the other hand denied the planning bills favoured developers, pointing towards the increase in fines for illegal development.