SOS Hondoq News

Monday, March 12, 2012

No request for transfer of land at Ħondoq


Published on the Times of Malta on Tuesday 6th March, 2012. 
No request has been received by the Lands Department so far for the transfer of a disused desalination plant at Ħondoq Ir-Rummien, which is on government land.
The Lands Department said this morning that the necessary verifications had been carried out and no request for transfer of land at Ħondoq had been received.
Last Saturday, eight environmental groups called on the Director of Land to inform them whether the developers of the €120 million project had requested a transfer the disused plant, which they had included in a fresh set of plans recently submitted to the planning authority. The changes also proposed scrapping the marina and replacing it with a lagoon.
The developers want to demolish the plan and build a car park to gain extra space for the project, according to the environmental groups.
The groups also asked the authorities to state clearly their stand on a transfer of land and on the proposed development on it. A department spokesman said the Director of Land "was not aware of the matter and will be looking into it".
The planning authority had refused to accept the updated plans and said they had to be submitted through a new application, prompting an appeal from the developers. The original project to build a five-star hotel, 285 flats and villas, 731 underground parking spaces, 10 shops and five restaurants had been slammed by the planning authority's environment unit as "objectionable".
The groups said they felt very strongly about this site being handed over to the developers for speculative purposes. Instead, they are calling for the Ħondoq area to be converted into a national park, run by the local council, and rehabilitated into an open space for everyone as originally earmarked in the area's local plans.
An online petition urging the planning authority to turn down the project has attracted more than 4,000 signatures. The petition can be found on: http://raxerri.com/soshondoq .