The Portomaso Tower is 23 storeys high, the twin towers to be built at Pendergardens will be 20 and 23 storeys high respectively and the Fortina tower is 17 storeys high. The proposed Town Square tower will rise to a staggering 32 storeys. All very tall buildings. Yet, if all the articles that misrepresented the objectors to any of these high-rise buildings had to be stacked on top of each other, the resultant pile would loom above the lot. Residents who object or pose questions about proposed construction close to their homes are often portrayed as selfish NIMBYS, politically motivated or uninformed people hyper-ventilating over scraps of incorrect information they would have picked up while gossiping at the grocer. Whether unfair portrayals of the sort come in the guise of letters to the press sent in by parties who have undisclosed interests in the projects involved, or prettily made up as promotional material, they should be taken for what they really are – half-truths.

Take the recent feature about the proposed development of Fort Cambridge in the magazine Flair. It started off by telling us that the planned development is “currently the subject of controversy. In the midst of rumour and agitation, many of the facts have been lost or twisted.” Flair, it went on, would take a look. What followed was an interview with Alex Torpiano, the leading architect of the project, and George Muscat, the chairman of GAP Holdings that is developing the site.

Mr Torpiano started off by explaining why the projected buildings will have to be so blooming high. They’re building them higher so that they can be narrower and residents will have lots of open spaces to scuttle through. No mention is made of the fact that the development brief stipulated that the highest building would be 16 storeys, but that the plans approved by MEPA show the highest building will rise to a height of 23 storeys. Whoever is pushing the project will maintain that residents will gain more open spaces by having the building footprint reduced – even if this comes at the cost of higher buildings. This is a misleading description of the benefits residents will supposedly enjoy following the divergence from the development brief. It is not simply a case of “high and far apart” instead of “low and close together”. It is a matter of diverging considerably from a brief that was the basis of consultation. Incidentally, during the consultation exercise, many of the comments made by the public concerned the 16-storey height limit, which was already feared to be excessive. I find it extremely hard to believe that increasing the height limitation has quelled these fears.

Alex Torpiano bemoans what he perceives to be an uninformed public. He says that the development brief was not explained to the public, making the situation ripe for all sorts of misinformation. Actually the public was very well informed about the whole project, despite the ever-changing plans from the developer’s end. I was present at the marathon MEPA meeting where the project was (predictably) approved. There were no scaremongering, agitated, fact-twisting residents in evidence. Their concerns were well founded and relevant, whether or not you live close by or couldn’t give a damn because it’s not in your backyard. Apart from being justifiably concerned about the way the 16-storey limitation had been cast aside like yesterday’s underwear, they asked why the carrying out of an Environmental Impact Assessment had been waived in this case. Detailed assessments are required when projects of this size and significance are proposed. The MEPA Board members (with one exception) kept decidedly mum about this. MEPA insists on considering this project in isolation, refusing to acknowledge the conglomeration of high-rise blocks and multi-apartment complexes crowded in a relatively small area of the country. The Town Square project, the Tigne Point Project, the Manoel Island project, the Pendergardens development ,do not figure in MEPA’s holistic view of the situation – because it has none. It flatly refuses to commission a Traffic Impact Assessment to be able to assess what impact these developments, with thousands of car-owning individuals, will have on the locality. This is not a question of seeing that there are enough garage spaces available for these cars, but that there is a suitable traffic infrastructure that will support these cars and others as they drive from place to place. Anybody who has fumed behind a steering wheel for ages harbours no illusions about things getting better. MEPA and the developers roll blithely on ignoring the plight of drivers, rather like modern day Marie Antoinettes instructing us to suffer gridlock instead of eating cake.

Contrary to what was implied by Alex Torpiano, the residents are not solely concerned about the aesthetic appearance or otherwise of the project. They are worried about the effect that some five years of ongoing construction work will have on them, the burden that such a huge project will have on the infrastructure of the locality when it is completed, the gridlock that will become an ever-present feature of their daily life, the inexplicable waiving of the EIA requirement and the fact that this is a repeat manifestation of MEPA’s overwhelming pro-construction bias.

Alex Torpiano ends his statement saying that the site consists of a dilapidated hotel with ugly extensions made to a 19th century fort and that the developers are creating a recreational space for the public where previously there was none. This “we’re just restoring our heritage” chorus chanted by every developer who has been given a permit to build on historical sites is wearing very thin. The national government, which is entrusted with the upkeep of historical sites, is guilty of wilful neglect of the same sites that are then sold to construction companies (with a few small caveats about public access) and we are meant to be eternally grateful for the magnanimity of their restoration projects. The truth is that the government hasn’t given a toss about the upkeep of Fort Cambridge for many years. It now finds itself in a position where its tight financial straits make it difficult to fund the restoration project. The government’s solution is to sell off the site for Lm23 million, thereby boosting its finances, while requesting the developer to pay for the restoration. This is not a purely philanthropic act on the developer’s behalf. Would it make sense for him to have expensive apartments surrounded by ruins? In such cases the public is doubly penalised – first by the government’s neglect of a historical site, and then by its sale to private interests who must obviously be accommodated for their financial outlay. Is it the fault of residents that Fort Cambridge has been allowed to rot? Is it their fault that extensions to the hotel and other accretions have been permitted along the years? How were they involved in the decision to deny them access to the pathways and open areas around it? The restoration of the Fort and the opening up of certain areas to the public is not some kind of undeserved gift to the residents. These are not things they should have to pay for by making concessions. The upkeep of sites and public access to them should have been theirs all along.

I suppose all is fair in love and war and public relations exercises and the developers may publish and push lots of glamorous photos of show apartments. We can also expect to see more articles and barely concealed adverts about the “facts” of the Fort Cambridge development. None of them will delve into the temporary inconvenience caused to residents by the demolition work and the more permanent ones such as traffic gridlock, longer hours of shade. Conveniently enough, these facts will be ignored.