Developer Victor Borg said he is pleased with the outcome of the Ta' Cenc referendum held in Sannat last Saturday, saying that the result gives a strong indication that the "great majority" of the residents there are not against his plans. In his calculations, Mr Borg included the people who did not bother voting or could not do so on the day as showing support.

But environmentalists have disagreed with the developer, stating that, at law, the referendum showed that people are against the project, with 70 per cent of the voters casting a "no" preference to the project.

“I am happy with the result considering only 295 voted against the development. It seems that 85% aren’t objectors,”  Mr Borg said in comments to The Malta Independent as a reaction to the result of the referendum.

Voters were asked to express their views on the proposed Ta' Cenc development, which includes a heritage park, multi-ownership hotel and 15 villas. With a disappointing turnout of 22% of all eligible voters, the final result was a victory for the ‘no’ camp, with 295 voting against the project while only 126 voters expressed themselves in favour.

In spite of technically losing the vote, Mr Borg believes that the Sannat people who did not turn up have, in their own way, endorsed the project. 

He said he was actually surprised that 126 people bothered to show up to say that they agree with the development considering “they could have gone to the beach instead.” The owner of VJ Borg Enterprise reiterated what he told TMI last week insisting, “I always did what I did for the good of Gozo,” while adding that he hates being called a developer because he was never much of a seller.

He insisted that, according to the Gozo and Comino Local Plan published in 2006, Ta' Cenc is not purely ODZ land. In fact, it was specifically mentioned along with a small number of other sites such as Fort Chambray and the Ta' Dbiegi Crafts Village as designated for “specific types of development and/or land-use.”

This newsroom also asked the Planning Authority whether or not the result will change anything at all when it comes to processing the planning application. A spokesperson replied that “all planning applications are processed and regulated in accordance with legal notice 162/16. Additionally, the new law stipluates that for all major planning applications a representative of the local council within which the site boundaries falls has a voting right when a decision is taken in public.”

Sannat mayor Philip Vella had told TMI last week that the referendum is in no way the deciding factor whether the proposal will pass or not, but it will settle what position the council will take to defend the residents’ voices. The final decision in the end will be the authorities’.

Co-founder of Front Harsien ODZ, Dr Michael Briguglio said that “if the mayor obliged his council to stand by the result of the referendum, then he should stick to his word, in terms of his council's position.”

When asked about the implications of the low turnout for the referendum, Dr Briguglio answered that the Front “notes that a majority of voters voted against the proposed development”.

He also repeated the statement which the Front had initially released after the vote saying that “the sudden news that a referendum will be held in Sannat raises suspicion about its legitimacy, especially since the public got to know about it through the press only five days before the referendum was held.”

In answer to the same questions, Dr Petra Caruana Dingli from Din L-Art Helwa said that “the result remains a snapshot of what the voters thought on that day. Clearly, there is no support for the project among Sannat residents. Nationally there has been great concern about this project for years. In fact, a national petition against the project with 10,000 signatures was presented by Din l-Art Helwa in 2006.”

Regarding the implication of such a low turnout, Dr Caruana Dingli also reiterated the NGO’s reaction statement released after results were published saying that “this referendum needed more time for the voters to get into the issues.”

Co-founder of Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, Astrid Vella also weighed in on the implications of the turnout saying that “the Sannat local council’s failure to publicise their own referendum goes beyond ‘bad planning’, especially since Maltese residents registered in Sannat, who would be more likely to vote against the project, were not even aware of the referendum and therefore did not vote.

“While apathy may have played a part in it, many Gozitans may have registered their disapproval of the project by simply staying away from the polling booth.  The local council’s failure to inform its residents of the full scale of the project, leaving out the 15 ODZ villas and the long-term implications of the proposed development could also have undermined faith in the referendum. This was flawed from the start, and in violation of the norms set out by the Aarhus Convention and the EU Directive on Public Access to Environmental Information.”

Mrs Vella commented on the significance of the result saying that “in spite of the low turnout, we consider that the vote in favour of no development is very significant. The fact that the referendum failed to gain an overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote from Sannat residents, many of whom are employed by the Ta’ Cenc Hotel, speaks volumes. Whether it will make a difference depends on the Planning Authority which may question the legal validity of such a referendum.”