Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/984659
OPINION 25 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 MAY 2018 ian aesthetic principle known to man. What does an apartment need, anyway? Four walls, a roof, and – at most – a balcony. Et voila: rows upon rows of limestone-clad shoeboxes, just like any other housing estate... And that's just Main Street. After a while, you turn a corner into a square that could easily be a carbon copy of the centrepiece of Tigne Point: i.e., expertly designed to block out the view in all directions... thus restricting a panorama that was once enjoyed by everybody, to the lucky few who can afford to buy or rent the new sea-front apartments. Which takes us back to the im- age I tried (probably unsuccess- fully) to convey with my earlier description. How on earth did we all consent to exchange what we have today on Manoel Island, for... THAT? Did we even con- sent to this at all? I'm unaware that we ever did. As I said in the beginning, this was the result of negotiations be- gun by a Nationalist government in the mid-1990s; continued by a Labour government between 1996 and 1998, before the deal was eventually concluded in 2000. Meanwhile an entire gen- eration, that wasn't even born at the time, has now reached voting age. They're being deprived of something they even knew they had: how can that possibly be fair? But then again, Malta was a different country back when this whole thing started. We were not exactly rolling in money in the 1990s: governments found it hard to say 'no' to investment projects worth millions (espe- cially given how political parties were funded at the time – and up to a point still are). And there wasn't the same level of environmental aware- ness that exists today, either. Ed- die Fenech Adami was himself the product of pre-war Malta: his early adulthood unfolded against the backdrop of the post-war construction boom. He would have looked at Manoel Island and seen nothing but a giant patch of wasteland crying out for development. And if he's reading this article right now, he'll probably be shaking his head and muttering something like: 'lizards and skinks... hekk jonqos ukoll...' So all things considered, I don't hold his short-sightedness against him. Today's authori- ties, however, are a little less easy to let off the hook. What's our excuse today, for deny- ing public access to a cul- tural heritage jewel for over two decades... only to transform it into a 'Mediterranean village'? (Because, of course, the one thing that the Sliema/Gzira area was crying out for was another 'Mediterranean village', to add to all the rest...) It cannot be 'the economy'... not when government is busy trumpeting its great financial successes – surplus, credit agency upgrades, etc. – at every opportunity. It could, however, be the existence of a contract which binds all successive gov- ernments for 99 years... of which only 18 have actually elapsed. This, I shall have to admit, makes a powerful argument: unwise though the decision appears today, the contract in itself is valid, and legally in force. Whatever is done (and I'm not exactly hopeful that anything will be) shall have to respect the legality of that agreement. This allows for two possibili- ties that I can see. The first is that legal ways are sought to overturn the contract – with all due compensation paid – and return Manoel Island to the people who had been barred out from it for so long (before partial access was recently – and somewhat grudgingly – al- lowed). Somehow, governments do occasionally find ways out of their legal obligations when it suits them – we saw this in the case of Cafe Premier, for instance – so it would not be a 'first'. It would, however, involve a lot of acrimonious court wrangling, with no guarantee of success. Far simpler – and, there- fore, far less likely – is that the contracting parties themselves either relinquish their rights over Manoel Island (once more against compensation, etc.); or downscale the project consider- ably, so as to retain that all- important view of greenery for the benefit of the construction- choked population across the water... and so that traversing that bridge still feels, as it does today, that you are leaving the urban sprawl behind you, and entering a much-needed oasis of green and calm. Come on, all you big develop- ers... and all your architects and urban planners, horses and men. You know you can do it... and still make the whole thing a worthwhile investment for yourselves. And if you can't... well, then perhaps it's time to consider the possibility that you may be in the wrong line of business. After all, it takes a pretty lousy developer/urban planner, to ruin a place with so very much potential... and which needs so very little for that po- tential to be actuated. J. & A. Bonnici Ltd. are requesting a quotation for a Paper Bag Machine with a 4 Colour Inline Printer. Economic operators interested in submitting a quotation may inquire for a detailed copy of the request for quotations by sending an email on info@jabonnici.com Deadline for submission: 3 rd June 2018 Submissions of quotations are to be sent on info@jabonnici.com