The controversial plans to construct an underground car park in Qui-Si-Sana, a major cause of disgruntlement among Sliema voters in the area, have been dropped, MaltaToday has learned.
The Ministry for Resources and Rural Afffairs has now applied to MEPA to upgrade the existing garden and play area in Tigné, most of which is presently utilised as a car park.
Plans to upgrade the Qui-Si-Sana garden were announced by minister George Pullicino last month. The new plans do not include the underground car park proposal and accompanying commercial development that had been envisioned in a 2002 development brief.
The car park proposal dates back to 1999 when a draft brief, which initially excluded major commercial development, was presented for public consultation.
But a development brief issued in 2002 allocated 7,000 square metres of space for “innovative tourist related/leisure development”. Plans subsequently presented by the C&F Contractors included a 24-lane bowling alley, a 120-seat theatre, an exhibition centre, a bar and various other leisure outlets.
In a stormy meeting in February 2006, Sliema’s Nationalist-led local council decided they had no objection to the developers’ latest plans for the contentious Qui-Si-Sana car park, as “long as they conform to the development brief.”
But the motion was fiercely opposed by AD and Labour councillors. The Qui-Si-Sana issue exploded on the eve of the March 2006 local council elections, when a public protest was attended by a large number of residents, mostly Nationalist voters.
“We will express our feelings with a vote,” one of the residents had told MaltaToday. The local elections saw the PN losing 10 percentage points, and Labour and Alternattiva Demokratika increasing their share of the vote as turnout dipped to an all-time low.
A week after the drubbing, the Prime Minister met residents from the Qui-Si-Sana neighbourhood for a two-hour meeting on the contentious car park project, organised by former Sliema mayor and Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo.
The newly elected mayor – Arrigo’s wife Marina – also declared her opposition to any commercial development in the proposed car park. Subsequently, even the developer dropped his plans for commercial development, although the application for the car park was not dropped.
The government also dropped plans for the development for a car park under adjacent Ghar id-Dud promenade, which also included plans for a restaurant instead of the Chalet ruins.
The Qui-Si-Sana car park issue fizzled out from public debate as residents were unofficially informed that the car park plans had been shelved. The issue did not even feature in the last local election which saw the PN regaining lost ground and AD losing its seat on the council.
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