Smart City requires ‘unacceptable’ road

James Debono
Smart City will require a new road junction 500 metres south of Tal-Barrani road in Zejtun, to link the mega-project to the Hompesch Arch, but such a development is already described as “unacceptable on environmental grounds” by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s planning experts.
Although Smart City will be mostly built on derelict land, the infrastructure paving the way for the project is proving to be a veritable environmental nightmare.
Apart from the road linking Bieb is-Sultan in Zabbar to Smart City, which would pass through a stretch of agricultural land, a new junction will be required to link the project to Hompesch Arch.
A traffic impact study commissioned by the developers concluded that the present junction linking Triq tal-Barrani to Hompesch Arch will not cope with the anticipated traffic flows unless it was completely designed on a larger scale.
To avoid a traffic gridlock, the new road will have to be completed by 2010. The study recommends the creation a new junction, 500 metres further down from Triq tal-Barrani.
But according to the Planning Directorate “first impressions” indicate that the new proposal is “unacceptable” on environmental grounds.
The case officer’s report states that this new proposal was not anticipated by MEPA. “Whilst the proposal is clearly a straightforward engineering solution to the problem, it brings to light several planning, environmental and implementation issues, which are problematic at this stage of the development of Smart City Malta,” the case officer’s report states.
But according to the same report “first impressions indicate that it is unacceptable on environmental grounds, though it would have to go through the EIA process before this is confirmed”.
It also points out that the timeframe for completing the new junction in time is tight because it has to be “in place” before Smart City starts operations.
But when approving the outline preliminary permit on Monday, the MEPA board overturned a condition proposed by the Planning Directorate which stipulated that no development should take place until the completion of a road infrastructure linking SmartCity to Zabbar and Hompesch Arch to Triq il-Barrani.
MEPA accepted the developers’ argument that it was up to the government to decide on new road networks.
Effectively MEPA has approved a mega-project which makes the new road inevitable.
The present quandary was brought about by MEPA’s failure to conduct an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) when it approved changes to the Grand Harbour Local Plan to accommodate the Smart City development.
A four-lane, 23-metre wide dual carriageway set to link Zabbar with Kalkara and the Smart City project, running for 643 metres through largely arable land is also being proposed.
An attempt to deviate the proposed “Smart City road” from arable land to fallow land nearer to the Cottonera fortifications has raised the eyebrows of Malta’s heritage watchdogs.
An EIA is being prepared to assess the inevitable loss of agricultural land between Kalkara and Zabbar. The new road is also intended as a bypass, diverting industrial and commercial traffic away from residential areas and the historic Cottonera towns.

St Peter’s Battery
The fate of the historical St Peter’s battery remains undecided following last Monday’s MEPA board decision to give preliminary approval for the Smart City project.
MEPA has now appointed a committee in which the developers who want the fort demolished will sit next to Malta’s heritage watchdogs, who are demanding its preservation.
The WWII fortification was originally earmarked for demolition to make way for 77 villas set in a 42,000 square metre rural site outside the boundaries of the former Ricasoli industrial estate.
But MEPA’s own Planning Directorate and Malta’s two heritage watchdogs, the Superintendence for Fortifications and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage, want the full preservation of the battery.
The Planning Directorate’s has recommended that all four gun emplacements, the two magazines and the command post, are retained.
But the MEPA board substituted this condition by appointing a committee composed of the developers, the Planning Directorate, the Superintendence for Fortifications and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage to take decisions on this issue even if the positions between the developers and the heritage watchdogs seem irreconcilable.
In a joint position, the two heritage watchdogs made it clear that the battery should be considered as “historical monument commemorating World War 2” and therefore should be preserved in its entirety.
“It should be emphasised that Maltese soldiers lost their life in this place while serving the country and the battery should therefore be regarded as a monument in their remembrance.”
But the developers insisted that only three gun emplacements should be preserved. They have also presented a structural survey showing that the condition of practically all the buildings on the site are in danger of collapsing, after long years of neglect and lack of maintenance when the place was used as a cow farm and exposed to the corrosive influence of cow dung and urine.
“The only way that restoration can be carried out effectively, is that of the wholesale replacement of practically most of the buildings’ elements.”
The heritage watchdogs have also objected to the demolition of a pill box to make way for a hotel, adding that this should only be relocated if this is deemed to be absolutely possible. The MEPA board has decided that this pill box should be relocated and rebuilt on another site.
They also objected to the building of apartments close to the Fort St Rokku glacis.

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