Like White Rocks, Armier is public land worth ‘millions of euros’ – NGOs

Four environmental non-government organizations have described the demands of Armier’s boathouse owners as “electoral arm-twisting” who are looking to capitalize on public land worth millions of euros.

Referring to the White Rocks sports village, to be developed by a private real estate group, the environment groups Ramblers’ Association, Friends of the Earth Malta, Flimkien ghal Ambjent Aħjar and Nature Trust (Malta) said the Armier squatters were acting like a private group, looking to “organise themselves is better understood when the millions of real estate value at stake on this public land is revealed.”

The ENGOs said Armier was probably larger than the White Rocks’ 220,000 square metres, and was a seafront public real estate “worth millions of euros [and] it is about to be written off for a pittance due to political blackmail.”

The Armier squatters have built illegal boathouses on the seafront, and are fighting any form of eviction by organising themselves in a political lobby.

“In addition to the illegal shacks, caravaners are now insolently demanding alternative sites in locations convenient to them in order to move off the land they illegally occupy. It beggars belief that the leaders of Malta’s main political parties should pander to land grabbers by offering them property that rightfully belongs to the nation,” the group said.

An agreement signed with the Nationalist government on the eve of the 2003 election, would extend the existing 67,000 square metres to around 231,000 square metres, against an annual rent of €350,000. The pledge was renewed by the leader of the Nationalist Party just before the 2008 elections, by committing himself to “consult with MEPA” on the pending applications by Armier Developments, the boathouse owners’ company, to develop the land.

Presented in 2004, the applications propose the development of 1,589 rooms, five playing fields and a bowls pitch, a minimarket, three restaurants, a two-storey garage, three community centres and a clinic in an area spanning Ramlet il-Qortin, Ta’ Macca u l-Armier, the Barriera tal-Ahrax quarry, Little Armier and the Torri l-Abjad zone.

MEPA chairman Austin Walker has now claimed that part of the development proposed by Armier Developments is unacceptable because of environmental, agricultural and land ownership issues.

“Our position is crystal clear. Rampant abusive land seizures, such as that along the Valletta harbour, Gnejna, San Tumas, Ghadira, all of Armier and in Gozo such as in Dwejra and ix-Xatt l-Ahmar, must be terminated,” the ENGOs said.