Students from the University of Malta on Thursday attended a “memorial styled demonstration” organized by the University’s student council (KSU) in front of the building site that is set to host an 11-storey hotel. The development replaced the beloved Mireva Bookshop, leaving the university campus “without one bookshop” around the area.
During this morning’s funeral-like demonstration, KSU's event was endorsed by 20 other student organisations as they carried red candles and an empty coffin before placing them in front of the construction site. These objects were placed beneath a backdrop reading “I don’t give a damn about the student” (“Xalabiebi mill-Istudent”).
Numerous students placed candles onto the empty coffin in order to symbolically represent the “burial” of student interests.
In their online post that announced today’s demonstration two days ago, KSU reiterated that “the completion of the project will continue to fuel the lack of student-targeted services in the area, negatively impacting student life on campus.”
Furthermore, the student council also described their fear that “University will become suffocated by major infrastructural projects that offer unaffordable and unsustainable options to students.” Concluding their announcement, KSU wrote that “Whilst the addition of student accommodation is necessary, this should not come at the cost of sustainability and proper infrastructural planning in line with the amenities of the respective area.”
KSU President Jeremy Mifsud Bonnici told Net News today that KSU is not directly against the hotel development, but rather its location right by campus grounds. He iterated the council’s belief that the area should put students at the centre, not developers or businessmen.
KSU’s 2022 council had publicly expressed their disdain towards both this development as well as the newly developed Campus Hub. When asked about the development replacing the Mireva Bookshop in October 2022, former KSU President Alex Gaglione criticized Campus Hub for being “unaffordable and unsustainable”.
A demonstration was held by KSU against this same development back in September 2022.
Questions were also raised as to whether these projects would truly improve university life, citing that “Students and students’ well-being should be at the heart of any project on university grounds”. The former Council President had also displayed the irony behind how “a student could buy overpriced coffee and have endless food options, yet that same student cannot purchase a book on campus.”
The proposed hotel received criticisms during last year’s summer after its developer, Mark Agius – who is a business associate to Gozitan tycoon Joseph Portelli – successfully requested for an additional storey to be added to the already accepted project, in spite of student protestation. In the summer of 2022, this newsroom reported about this development’s opposition from NGOs such as Din l-Art Ħelwa and a case officer.
In December 2019, the Planning Commission had refused a case officer’s recommendation to refuse permission for this project before 72 rooms and an additional storey were added onto the originally accepted plans. The case officer had stated that the hotel exceeded designated height limitations and that it would “negatively impact the environment because it would create exposed blank party walls.”