The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) public hearing of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) update for the proposed extension at Portomaso raised many an eyebrow and placed the proverbial bull in the china shop. If approved, this development will replace and destroy a 10,000-square metre ecological zone protected by the original Portomaso permits; there is also another hugely important issue.

Alternattiva Demokratika’s Michael Briguglio showed that the Portomaso permits imposed conditions barring further extensions or additions to the project. He also said that the developers themselves requested that such condition be included in the permits. Briguglio said he has a copy of a letter from Mepa to the developers confirming this fact.

The Portomaso development was therefore built subject to a permit condition that no new developments or extensions are permissible.

Therefore, Mepa must now not only abide by its responsibilities to see that conditions attached to permits it issued for the Portomaso project are fully implemented, but even the developer of Portomaso is obliged to comply with his own commitments made prior to the issue of such permits.

The issue of a permit for a 10,000 square metres extension at Portomaso replacing the protected ecological zone cannot therefore but be illegal, and persons feeling aggrieved will surely have a case to sue Mepa, as well as the developer, who is now conveniently forgetting the commitments made by him to Mepa at the time of the original development permit.

Mepa may nevertheless approve applications for the extension, satisfying the developer’s greed and in so doing ignore the interests of bona fide Portomaso residents who bought property at Portomaso with such conditions in force. If then, as is likely, Mepa is sued by those residents damaged by Mepa’s non-observance of its own conditions attached to the original permits, it will again be the ordinary Maltese citizen and taxpayer who will ultimately have to foot the bill for the damages that may well become due by Mepa to the residents.

Surely therefore, Mepa should not only preserve the ecological zone originally protected by the Portomaso permits and continue to impose the same conditions that no further developments will be allowed at Portomaso, but Mepa must also protect itself, and ultimately, the general public from damages that may arise due to its abrogation of conditions imposed by Mepa itself.

Peter Richards

KENT

UK