Queries on Ħondoq plan

Published on the Times of Malta on Monday, 5th March, 2012. 

Eight environmental groups are calling on the Director of Land to inform them whether the developers of the €120 million Ħondoq Ir-Rummien project have requested a transfer of government property.

The groups said the developers included a disused reverse osmosis plant 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 plant is on government land. The developers want to demolish it and build a car park to gain extra space for the project, according to the environmental groups. The developers also notified the Land Department.

Moviment Ħarsien Ħondoq, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Ramblers, Nature Trust, Wirt Għawdex, Friends of the Earth, Din l-Art Ħelwa and the Gozo University Group have requested an urgent public reply from the Land Department about whether it received any requests for the transfer of this land.

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 

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