Carmel Cacopardo, the latest celebriy front-liner to embrace Alternattiva Demokratika’s green cause, had represented clients as architect for a massive development that would have changed the same site where, a week ago, he flanked the Green Party to decry the destruction of agricultural land in Hal Kirkop, MaltaToday can reveal.
MEPA applications show that Cacopardo was the architect for the proposed construction of terraced houses, garages and maisonettes at Triq San Gwann in the limits of Hal Safi in 1995, right opposite the same development of a Lidl supermarket, proposed by Charles Polidano, that he now wants to stop on environmental grounds.
In the development proposed 12 years ago, sprawling over 47 plots, Cacopardo had submitted the plans and applications on behalf of Guido Falzon outside the limits for development.
Yet last week, Cacopardo was right there on the frontline of the Green Party’s battle for the preservation of agricultural land opposite St Benedict’s College, as Polidano’s trucks were unearthing tonnes of soil to build the new supermarket.
The ex-PN Information Secretary and former MEPA audit office investigator appealed to the high moral ground as he flanked AD officials who slammed “the notorious construction magnate” and accused the authority of lacking credibility for approving the development just metres away from the project he himself planned over a decade ago.

The same architect now refers to the local plan identifying the area as agricultural land, and criticises the development control commission that allowed the Polidano project spreading over 10,000 square metres
“Nobody can blame anyone for suspecting this is yet another result of the affinity between politics and the construction industry,” he said during last week’s protest. “With such decisions, the local plans become a smokescreen.”
At the same venue, AD’s spokesman for the South, Saviour Sammut, said MEPA could not be taken seriously.
“It should have upheld the planning directorate’s recommendations and refused this development outright, situated as it is in a green area which serves as a buffer zone and green belt between the two villages of Hal Safi and Hal Kirkop,” Sammut said.
“Hectares of arable land are being once again sacrificed for greedy commercial purposes. The development is not in ‘pockets’ within built up areas… This development is another case of urban sprawl; a case of appeasing the few over the interests of the wider community.”
Contacted yesterday evening, an unrepentant Cacopardo said: “Yes the 1995 application was on the other side of the road, but remember that at that time there was no local plan. If you look at the submissions you’d find there was another permit issued at that time, so the application was submitted in that context.
“The application was eventually turned down and that was the end of it. Had the authority applied, in the supermarket case, the same principles it applied back then, today there would not be any supermarket being built. Actually today it’s worse because there are the local plans.”
When reminded that he had defended the application in 1995 despite being outside development zone and on arable land, Cacopardo said he had explained to his clients that their application was difficult to pass through and that the authority had acted correctly when it refused to grant permits.
Still, his defence of the application is minuted in the authority’s records. Asked how he could defend the application in principle when today he was shooting down another development in the same area, the architect said: “Yes, the principle is important but if you go by that reasoning you end up doing nothing (ma tagħmel xejn xogħol).”
It is also unclear whether Alternattiva was informed of his involvement in the 1995 project as architect.
“I believe I mentioned it as we were approaching the site,” he said yesterday.
Cacopardo’s application, case number 04226/95, was turned down by MEPA in May 1996, then still known as the Planning Authority, and an appeal, also filed by Cacopardo, was similarly refused given that the project was located in a green area and an outside development zone that “should remain undeveloped and open”.
In his submissions to the MEPA board, Cacopardo had referred to a garage that was sanctioned by the same authority and that was being used by a mechanic.
“It does not make sense to grant a development permit and refuse another one on adjacent land on the grounds that this should remain virgin land,” Cacopardo had argued back then.
However the board had established that the garage was built before a permit was issued and was meant to be destroyed according to a Criminal Appeals Court sentence given in December 1994.
Despite the planning directorate’s recommendation for refusal, the authority’s development control commission had still approved the illegality in April 1995, with a vote of four against two.
The file’s minutes show that two members voting against were “Mr J. Falzon and Dr Buhagiar” who insisted on including a minute stating that they “strongly object to this application as it is creating a very severe precedent for this area”.
Cacopardo had remarked to the Appeals Board that “now the precedent was set” with the mechanic’s garage, and it was unacceptable to approve one development and refuse another one on the same stretch of land.
The appeals board, however, concluded that one could not compare a garage with a vast construction project over 47 plots, and confirmed the refusal for permits.
“The proposed development would… present unacceptable urban development in the countryside,” the board had concluded. It “is incompatible with the urban design and environmental characteristics of the area. It would not maintain the visual integrity of the area and so does not comply” with structure plan policies.
“There is no justified planning reason why this development cannot be located within the urban fabric and therefore there is no reason why we should commit further areas,” MEPA had stated.
The authority’s planning directorate had opined that “the granting of this permit would be a serious precedent which will affect all similar areas and would take away the ability of the Planning Authority to control such speculative applications”.
Cacopardo’s plans were also objected to by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Water Services Corporation and the Environment Protection Department as the project went against farm building policy, was in an Outside Development Zone and a protected area.
Before joining Alternattiva Demokratika earlier this year, Cacopardo was MEPA’s investigator within its audit office, but his term was not renewed last April, triggering Autior Joe Falzon’s threat to resign if his choice was turned down by the MEPA board.
“I want Carmel Cacopardo because he is incorruptible,” Falzon had told MaltaToday. “I want someone of the same integrity, and not some minister’s canvasser whom I cannot trust.”
Cacopardo served as Falzon’s investigative officer for the past years until his contract expired in April, only a few weeks before Joe Falzon was formally re-appointed. When Falzon returned in his office in May he found himself without an investigations officer.

kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt