Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/519957
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 31 MAY 2015 10 News JAMES DEBONO A luxury village, yacht marina and cruise liner terminal being pro- posed by the Kalamarine Consor- tium in Gozo has raised renewed fears of the unstoppable thirst for mega-construction on the islands' coastline. The government has so far re- fused to reveal the names of the shareholders involved in Kalama- rine, despite being asked to do so in a number of parliamentary questions. The consortium is the sole bid- der for the Gozo cruise liner ter- minal and plans to site the ter- minal inside the quarry owned by Gatt Constructions Ltd, were inadvertently revealed by the Mi- lan office of Chapman Taylor, who won a design competition for the terminal concept. MaltaToday has tried to con- firm whether Gatt Constructions is involved in Kalamarine, but at- tempts to contact Victor Gatt have so far been unsuccessful. But the quarry earmarked for the terminal is itself adjacent to a quarry owned by Road Construc- tions Ltd, a company owned by Joseph Grima and Victor Hili, which still has enough hard stone for the next 40 years of extraction: the high quality stone was used in the City Gate project. The quarry was only recently granted a renewal permit in 2014, but this quarry is not visible in the Chapman Taylor design because it is depicted as farmland. No replies were forthcoming from Road Construction Ltd to questions sent by MaltaToday on whether they have reached any agreement with Kalamarine to sell off their own quarry – surely a major obstacle to the development and landscaping of this extensive project. Both Road Construction and Gatt Constructions are leading firms on the island whose rivalry is well known: even politically, Road Construction has a history of enjoying patronage under PN administrations. Extensive EIA necessary Qala was not the Labour gov- ernment's preferred choice for a cruise liner terminal. In July 2013 when announcing the call for ex- pressions of interest, Gozo min- ister Anton Refalo said that while there is no preferred site for the project, proposals for Hondoq ir- Rummien at Qala would not be considered due to the environ- mental impact. But he declared that Marsalforn also had huge potential for a yacht marina. The bid to create a Gozi- tan 'Portomaso' in Marsalforn never materialised when the for- eign partners for a local investor lost interest in the project. MaltaToday is informed that the project would also have involved residential development in the vi- cinity or beneath a protected val- ley. A similar proposal made to the previous government was in fact rejected. Sources in MEPA's Environment Protection Directorate who spoke to MaltaToday dismissed claims by Chapman Taylor that work on the project could possibly start in 2016. A project of 220,000m² requires a rigorous Environment Impact Assessment that would take over two years to complete. In the case of the botched Hondoq marina, which also involved the devel- opment of a former quarry over 180,000m² of land, a final decision still has to be taken 13 years after the application was presented. MEPA has also made it clear that it was not involved in the site se- lection of the Simar quarry for the Kalamarine development. MEPA experts told this news- paper that on paper the project appears as an improvement to the landscape due to the existing quarries, but the construction of a completely new village in one of Gozo's most secluded areas is "very problematic", apart from its impact on marine life. Most of the objections against the Hondoq project, which also in- volved the conversion of a quarry into a Mediterranean village and a Qala terminal d Hondoq has already been, in the past, the subject of anti-development protests (above)