Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/513060
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 MAY 2015 6 News JAMES DEBONO IT is the availability of cheap, public land located outside devel- opment zones which renders the American University at Zonqor Point viable. This emerged from a reply of a Sadeen Group representative dur- ing a consultation meeting with the Marsaskala local council held at the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday, 4 May, days after the location of the development was revealed by Alternattiva Demokra- tika. In answer to a query by National- ist Party councillor Charlot Cassar on why ODZ land was chosen and why other sites were not consid- ered, the Sadeen Group represent- ative replied that had the develop- er been asked to pay a commercial price for the land the viability of the project would have been com- promised. Other councillors present at the meeting confirmed this. 90,000 square metres of virgin, agricultural land, equivalent to the area of 12 football pitches, is be- ing made available to the Jorda- nian group of contractors and real estate developers who will for the first time ever, build a university campus for 4,000 paying students. This confirms that Sadeen Group are being regaled with a tract of land in 'outside develop- ment zones' because ODZ land used for agriculture has a much lower value than that allocated for development. Councillors were also told that the developers were originally interested in regenerating White Rocks – another piece of cheap public land for which the govern- ment issued a call for expressions of interest last year. But councillors were told that the government insisted that the project should be in the south and offered them Zonqor. Both PN councillor John Baptist Camilleri and PL deputy mayor Desiree Attard confirmed this. On their part, Sadeen represenat- tive Kevin Deguara, a partner at DF Advocates, said that White Rocks was "only mentioned in passing during one of the many discus- sions we had with the government of Malta as was anyway too large for what we required. Sadeen nev- er expressed any interest in this lo- cation since to our knowledge the White Rocks Complex was already earmarked for another project by the government." Deguara said that Sadeen, who set up their Sadeen Educational and Sadeen Rehabiltation compa- nies in June 2014, spent a year in discussion and negotiations with JAMES DEBONO THE local plan regulating all de- velopment in the south of Malta does not allow the government to develop a public school in the Zonqor area. Various government spokes- persons, including the Prime Minister, have compared the development of a private uni- versity campus at Zonqor to the construction of new public schools in outside-development zones. But it turns out that although the local plan for the south al- lows new schools that replace old ones to be located outside the development limits, such schools can only be constructed along the parameter of the ODZ boundary. One of these conditions is that development of the site must not result in the "coalescence of urban settlements", when the proposed American University at Zonqor will effectively result in building a stretch of land be- tween two built-up areas, effec- tively breaching this policy. The site must also be easily accessed from an arterial road and entrance to and exit out of the site must not cause a traffic flow hazard. Zonqor Point is not presently easily accessible from any arterial road. And the siting must have "no significant adverse impact on adjacent protected areas, groundwater vulnerability, or nearby settlements." But Zonqor is located in an area designated for a natural park by the same local plan. Ef- fectively, the government is now reducing the size of the natural park by taking away the area earmarked for the campus de- velopment. Since 2000, two ODZ schools were constructed: a 22,830 sq. m. facility at Ta' Zokrija (Mos- ta), and another school with a site area of 15,940 sq. m. at Ta' Karwija (Kirkop). Unlike the Zonqor campus site, both sites abutted on the development zone boundary. 'Cheap land renders American University viable' Local plan excludes school development Marsaskala councillors told by Sadeen representatives they originally sought White Rocks' development before 'going south for cheap land'