MEPA CEO told to keep site selection report 'confidential'

MEPA’s site selection exercise for a private university in the south of the island was carried out without the input of economists, social scientists or traffic experts, chief executive Johann Buttigieg admitted to a parliamentary committee on environment and planning.
 
Buttigieg now said the site selection exercise will consider areas of 25,000 square metres, but refused to confirm whether a new site would be either complementing Zonqor Point, or excluding the area.

He failed to give a clear answer as to whether MEPA was excluding ODZ sites. He revealed that the original site selection report had been treated as "confidential" and even directorates such as the environment directorate had been excluded.

The site selection report was eventually tabled in parliament by the government.

Buttigieg said the terms of reference for the new study will not be published, and that MEPA was adhering to the original OPM criteria. The site assessment will produce a number of sites that must be assessed in EIAs commissioned by the developers Sadeen.

Not even MEPA’s environment protection department was involved in drafting of site selection report, and he refused to name the architects and planners involved in the site selection when asked point blank by Michael Briguglio from Front Harsien ODZ.

“MEPA should have told the OPM ‘thanks but no thanks’ because Zonqor lies in ODZ and is part of a national park.”

Buttigieg also said that no study was undertaken by MEPA on the veracity of the claims by the Prime Minister of the scale of job creation that the American University of Malta would bring, saying that this was not the aim of MEPA’s site selection exercise.

Buttigieg also admitted that MEPA held fortnightly meetings with the OPM to discuss the heads of agreement signed with Sadeen Group, which is still unpublished.

The MEPA chief executive was tasked by the OPM with the selection of an area in the southeast to host a campus of 90,000 square metres.

But the area at Zonqor Point fell within a national natural park originally designated in the local plan in 2006, provoking national outrage at the choice.

Buttigieg said MEPA was now evaluating over 100 sites suggested in an online consultation, which also includes a host of government and joint office lands.

“The criteria – the site has to be in the south, half of it government-owned, well serviced by existing infrastructure – have been retained,” Buttigieg said of the terms of reference.

He faced a tough grilling by environmental NGOs, representatives from the Front Harsien ODZ, and also committee chairman Marlene Farrugia.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil accused Buttigieg of lying when he said that MEPA was not responsible for the choice of land, but only a technical arm.

“Your report excluded the Ta’ Barkat and St Leonard sites… it is unacceptable that the highest MEPA official paid from our taxpayers does not give us correct information. You, Mr Buttigieg, are the person who decided that this development should take place at Zonqor Point,” Busuttil
said.

Farrugia at this point came to the CEO’s defence, saying that Buttigieg “had followed a brief that clearly came from  the Office of the Prime Minister”.

“I wish to know who these persons are,” Farrugia later commented.

In reply, Buttigieg said that in its desktop study MEPA described alternatives like Fort St Leonard had to be discarded because it was not serviced well, and that Zonqor had a less impact on the area’s ecological value and therefore “merited further consideration.”

Labour MP Marlene Farrugia challenged Buttigieg in declaring that Fort St Leonard was not serviced by roads – which the CEO qualified “were not wide enough” – because the fort was surrounded by a road, and it surrounding area was being used as a rubbish tip. “How could you have ruled it out?” Farrugia questioned.

Busuttil then charged Buttigieg with having chosen Zonqor. “Don’t insult the people’s intelligence…”

At the outset of the committee meeting, Buttigieg said that MEPA had received a brief from the government to select a site in the south-east, that was over 50,000 square metres, owned by the government. He said that the Government Property Division suggested Ta’ Barkat, where a sewage treatment plant is sited; Fort St Leonard, and Zonqor Point.

Following public outcry, the OPM directed MEPA to widen its search from the southeast of Malta to the whole of the south.

Buttigieg said he didn’t know whether the OPM had already approached the GPD but the GPD took three days to get back to MEPA after having identified public land available in the southeast of Malta.

Alternattiva Demokratika, Flimkien ghall-Ambjent Ahjar and several other eNGOs criticised the site selection exercise for having been merely a “desktop study”, ignoring the existence of the area being designated as a natural park in 2006, that no impact assessments were carried out to back
up the site selection, and for carrying out a selection for government on behalf of a private construction group.

Din l-Art Helwa criticised the site selection for its comparison of just two sites out of the three, without any brownfield sites being considered.

FAA’s Astrid Vella said that photos of Zonqor accompanying the site selection exercise were taken way back in the summer before the November report, in a bid to portray the area as a dry, derelict area when it was being actively farmed by local farmers.

A Din l-Art Helwa representative, reading off MEPA’S mission statement, said politicians and the MEPA CEO should pledge to always honour that statement.

“We have a knee-jerk reaction that instead of protecting the environment and looking at all sites, the site selection report simply looked at two sites. This is ridiculous,” Joanna Spiteri Staines said.

According to the site selection report, both Zonqor and San Leonardo, but particularly the coastal path running from Zonqor towards Xghajra, has been subjected to dumping and merit an extensive clean-up.

Din l-Art Helwa said, that while indeed such clean-ups are a must, yet it shouldn’t be suggested that abandoned areas should automatically open up themselves as potential lands for development.

Environmentalist Alfred Baldacchino shred the report to pieces, insisting that the site selection report was not fit for purpose.

“It is clear that the environment directorate was completely excluded as is amply clear that this report was meant to mislead everyone. It has no vision of management and ecological principles … how is it possible that there is no flora or fauna in the area?” Baldacchino asked.

Indeed, the report refers to a study dated 1989.

The MEPA CEO admitted that the report, compiled by his office, was kept “confidential” from the four directorates operating within MEPA.

Describing it an “embarrassment”, Baldacchino said he could not understand how MEPA had the guts to present such a report: “The poorness of this report will become evident as soon as an environment impact assessment would be commissioned by MEPA.”

In a stern voice, Farrugia told Buttigieg that the public now expected him to give government direction, and not for the OPM to tell him what to do.

“It’s now your responsibility, because you are here facing our questions, not them. Your duties are towards the people not the government. Turn to the government and tell it that ODZ land is out of bounds,” she said.

Government whip Godfrey Farrugia told the Front that the Labour parliamentary group had decided that: “In preparing policies, plans and programmes the use of vacant land outside development zones is to be considered only when no other feasible alternatives exist, in a sequential manner after firstly seeking reuse of existing developed land and buildings through change of use, to redevelop existing developed land and buildings and to develop areas with development zones. This with a view to ensure the sustainable use of land sea resources depending on the efficient use of available space.”

Michael Briguglio, from the Front, pointed out that the group’s statement was “simply a repetition of what the SPED says” – a planning document that is heavily criticised by environmentalists. All MPs have been asked by the Front to declare their position on the development of Zonqor Point.