Sadeen exit Zonqor for Smart City land swap

Smart City will relinquish a parcel of land to government, in a deal that paves the way for the American University of Malta’s relocation, MaltaToday has learnt.

The new agreement with Smart City is expected to be tabled in parliament as part of a back-to-back arrangement, that includes AUM giving up its title on land at Żonqor in Marsaskala.

Sources said government will not fork out a cent in this land-swap.

AUM will relinquish the Żonqor site it was granted in 2015 and be re-assigned a similar-sized area at Smart City.

“A new agreement was required with Smart City to satisfy contractual milestones and part of the deal includes returning part of the land to government,” the sources said.

The land transferred back to government at Smart City includes the area earmarked in 2016 for a new tourism school campus, and for which planning permits remain pending.

“Government still plans on building a new campus for the Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS) at Smart City and eventually this will sit side by side with the AUM campus that will be developed by Sadeen Education,” the sources said.

The same sources indicated that Smart City remains committed to developing the remaining area in Kalkara. The Maltese government has a minority shareholding in Smart City.

The site of a former industrial estate, the area between Kalkara and Xgħajra was originally directly granted to Dubai government-owned Tecom Investments in 2007 for the creation of an ICT and media park.

However, the development missed several targets over the years and large parts of the site remain undeveloped.

The finalised agreements with Smart City and AUM were discussed in Cabinet last week and are expected to be tabled in parliament for consideration by the National Audit Office Accounts Committee that deals with public land transfers.

AUM will relinquish its title on land at Żonqor Point, where it had to build a fully-fledged university campus for 4,000 students, and a public car park in Bormla, which was going to be developed into a dormitory.

The Żonqor area included the former national swimming pool and a tract of land outside the development zone.

The proposed project had sparked protests when it was first announced, prompting repeated calls over the years for the government to drop the deal after AUM failed to attract enough students to make a large campus viable.

Such was the scale of opposition against the project, that a large environmental protest by Front Ħarsien ODZ drew thousands to Valletta in 2015.

AUM was also granted a campus at Bormla’s Dock 1, which it will retain and continue to develop.

The decision that AUM would give up its title at Żonqor was announced by Prime Minister Robert Abela on Xtra, on TVMNews+ last week.

Abela only said that AUM would be given land at Smart City, which prompted questions as to whether government would have to fork out compensation.

The transfer of the university project to land already committed for development at Smart City is expected to close a controversial chapter from Joseph Muscat’s administration.

Labour Party insiders have told MaltaToday that Abela is keen on putting distance between himself and his predecessor and one way of doing so is to put a lid on some of the more controversial issues that erupted during Muscat’s stewardship.