Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1483500
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 NOVEMBER 2022 OPINION 11 And two: why WAS this par- ticular application rejected, anyway? (When – let's face it – so many others like it have been approved by the same PA Board, in recent years: despite facing not just 'similar', but IDENTICAL objections as the one at Ħondoq ir-Rummien?) I won't bother trying to an- swer the first of those questions: other than to say that it ties in with another point I mentioned earlier (i.e., 'nothing has actual- ly changed in Malta's planning legislation, to close these loop- holes…') The second question, how- ever, is a little less straightfor- ward. One possible reason, I sup- pose, is that the site we're talking about – Ħondoq Ir-Rummien – has acquired the equivalent of 'cult status', over the years: becoming, in the process, an in- stantly-recognisable symbol of pretty much everything that's wrong with our national plan- ning policies, to begin with. As such, the Appeals Tri- bunal must have been deeply conscious of the fact that any 'approval' of this project, would only cement the (already-wide- ly-held) popular perception that the PA itself is simply an 'extension of the Construction and Development lobby'… as, after all, former MDA chairman Sandro Chetcuti had already confirmed, by famously liken- ing the two political parties to 'supermarkets for developers', all those years ago. Another possibility, howev- er, is that – unlike so many of the other questionable permits, previously dished out by the same PA – this project did NOT enjoy the full backing of both major political parties (or at least: not since around 2016…) … and this was confirmed by Prime Minister Robert Abela himself, in the most open and transparent way possible: i.e., by dedicating a section of his Budget speech in Parliament – just days before the final vote – to voicing his own person- al opposition to the Ħondoq ir-Rummien project. Now: once again, this leaves me with somewhat mixed feel- ings. On one level, I can only ap- plaud both the Prime Minister, and Opposition Bernard Grech, for having finally 'seen the light' (even if, unaccountably, only with specific regard to this one, particular project…) On another level, however: sorry, but doesn't that just take us straight back to the days be- fore this country even had such a thing as a 'Planning Author- ity' at all? When the question of whether any development should be considered 'permissi- ble', or otherwise, was taken not by a (supposedly) 'independent, autonomous regulator'… but directly by the Prime Minister himself? And if so: on what basis, ex- actly, did Robert Abela say 'No' to the proposed Ħondoq tourism village; but not to any of the other, equally objection- able projects that are currently disfiguring Gozo, even as we speak? (And most of which are the handiwork of a single, very- well connected Gozitan devel- oper, named Joseph Portelli)? I don't know; and to be hon- est, I'm not sure I even want to guess. But it would be regret- table to have to conclude that our equivalent of 'L'Uomo Del Monte' – for those old enough to remember those 1990s ads – happened to say 'No', on this particular occasion… sim- ply because the developers in question hadn't attended that election-eve Gozo 'lunch', or- ganised for his benefit by the aforementioned Joseph Portelli (and whose answer, from the same 'Uomo Del Monte', has so far always been an enthusiastic: 'Yes, Yes, YES!!'). Just saying, that's all… Living, as we do, in an age when Planning Authority decisions always seem to go in the clean opposite direction; and when so many other (equally- monstrous, equally- disproportionate) projects are routinely 'greenlighted' by the same PA, almost on a weekly basis… there can be no doubt that Thursday's decision really does mark a significant turning- point, in the ongoing struggle against over-development