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4 JAMES DEBONO LAND reclamation at Portomaso was among the 21 land reclamation proposals made to the Government Property Division in December 2013, MaltaToday has learnt. This was confirmed by Planning Authority (PA) officials during last week's meeting of Parliament's En- vironment, Planning and Develop- ment committee convened to dis- cuss the Paceville masterplan. Land reclamation was proposed by Labour leader Joseph Muscat be- fore the general election and a call for expression of interests in land reclamation was issued in Septem- ber 2013, just 5 months after the new government was elected. The government was originally committed to hold a public exhibi- tion on all the proposals made to the Government Property Division but three years later all the propos- als made remain under wraps. The government later announced that it was working on a shortlist of projects, which also never materi- alised. Land reclamation at Portomaso resurfaced in the draft masterplan for the Paceville area which was presented by global management and engineering consultants Mott Mac Donald. But last week a PA spokesperson confirmed that submissions made to government by the owners of Portomaso, Tumas Group, for fur- ther development were passed on to the global planning consultants Mott Macdonald, whose vision for Paceville was carried out after "analysing this information incor- porated a land reclamation option in the master plan". The Paceville master plan, un- veiled last week by the PA, does not exclude another tower at Portoma- so but expressed a preference for coastal development – including land reclamation – where develop- ment may still rise to a maximum of 15 floors. With a floorspace of 234,000 square meters Portomaso is by far the largest of the 9 sites identified for new development in the Pace- ville masterplan. Development at Portomaso accounts for 20% of the additional 1.17 million additional floorspace proposed in the master plan. According to the same master- plan the site will have a built up footprint of 38,700 square me- tres, with photomontages in the Paceville master plan showing the new tower on reclaimed land that would obscure the classic view of the Dragonaro Casino from Sliema. The development will take place next to a marine protected area rich maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2016 News Dwarna with Mariella Dimech every Tuesday at 21.00 on TVM2 Portomaso first proposed for land a few months after 2013 election Paceville to get new to make up for spike JAMES DEBONO TWO sites in the Saint George's Bay area have been earmarked for the construction of a 900 square metre new electricity distribution centre which will be made necessary by the con- siderable increase in energy de- mand in Paceville. Altogether, the nine development projects will consume 40 megawatts of energy – four times that con- sumed by Malta's national hos- pital Mater Dei, 7% of the total amount of energy generated by Enemalta and almost a fifth of the total energy produced by the new power LNG terminal. One of the proposed sites for the distribution centre is a plot of undeveloped land on the other side of Triq Dragonara opposite Cresta quay which is now earmarked for 3 high-rise buildings. In this way exist- ing residents will not only be sandwiched between the Saint George's Park and the Cresta Quay towers but would also have a distribution centre next to them. The other site consists of a plot of land at the edge of the Villa Rosa gardens. A new distribution centre is needed because the existing En- emalta network at St Andrew's does not have enough spare capacity to meet these new de- mand levels. Enemalta has stat- ed that the St Andrew's property has enough space for a potential third transformer, but this is still considered insufficient for the proposed developments. Therefore a new Distribution Centre (DC) will be needed to supply the new demand. The three 30MVA transformers, with 54MVA of operable capac- ity will be capable of powering future demand. An alternative option would be the expansion of St An- drew's with a third 22.5MVA transformer and a new DC with two 30MVA transformers. This would enable Enemalta to downsize the new DC to 600m2. It is not clear whether the costs of the new energy infrastructure for the area will be paid by gov- ernment or by the developers benefitting from the investment. When launching the master- plan PA Chief Executive Johann Buttigieg announced that the government would be forking out €300 million in improving Paceville's infrastructure. The spike in energy demand resulting from developments in Paceville which would see its resident population increase from 2,000 to 9,000 would also impact on Malta's energy tar- gets. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the new LNG plant had made it clear that air quality targets can only be reached if energy demand does Cresta Quay residents will be sandwiched between the new Saint George's Park and Cresta Quay towers and a distribution centre