There used to be a time when Gozo was literally a second home.
Somehow over the years I neglected Gozo. I simply could not take in all the development as it spilled from the hills into the valleys and over the ridges. I could not bear to stare at all that destruction. I wanted to remember Gozo as I knew it.
I know this piece is going to sound boring and deeply nostalgic but for once I have omitted any mention of present day politicians.
In the mid-1980s the real threat to Gozo arose not because of any planned development at Ta’ Cenc but because of newly constructed flats such as the ones on the Zebbug promontory. The people who live in these flats did not apply for the permits or sit round with the politicians, neither did they wave green flags and eats tonnes of soya as a supplement to fillet. They were the normal kind of people who wished for a second home in Gozo.
The ones who maimed the gentle Gozitan townscape are the ones who speculated and built. Today, the Zebbug flats which have become the focus of some eye-opening court declarations by none other than a prominent judge – Joe Galea Debono – and former MEPA chairman – Chris Falzon – do not stick out as remarkably ugly.
Their ugliness has been dwarfed by the hordes of flats and so called farmhouses and hotels that have sprouted all around. These have all germinated since the inception of the Planning Authority, later MEPA, and many years after Lorry Sant passed away.
It is with this telling irony that one of the Zebbug objectors to this outside development proposal is a former MEPA chairman, appointed by this government and under whose captaincy, Gozo and Malta continued in the degradation that we once attributed solely to the Lorry Sant era.
It is high time that we forget about Lorry Sant and assign responsibility for this fracas in our surroundings to the present administration.
In their court action, the Zebbug flat owners have painfully collated some data that indicates the number of times a well-known architect – who was by the way appointed to MEPA by the former Nationalist minister responsible for MEPA – had applied for permits in outside development areas, got them refused at directorate level, and then somehow waved the green light at DCC level.
MEPA spokesmen who have the knack of defending the indefensible will argue that this is normal. It is not. Why should anyone apply in an area which is outside development and why should the DCC accept something which is unacceptable? Having said this, the applicant’s lawyer Justyn Caruana has informed the court that the applicant was withdrawing the application. If that is the case, what is the point of prolonging the court case?
The administration as I like to call it has obviously not taken the comment in court by a prominent judge lightly. They have, as is typical of crusading “Catholic” Nationalists, pointed out that the flats in question are an ugly scar on the Gozitan landscape and that the objectors should be the last ones to open their mouths.
But that I am afraid that is not the point. And it is unacceptable to hit back at citizens who are simply exercising their right. We attempt to decimate any form of opposition by digging out skeletons from their closet.
“The judge who said that MEPA is a kangaroo court has his primary residence next to Pender Place, that is why he cannot stand MEPA!” I was reminded.
Well, anyone in his right senses would oppose and stick the middle finger up to MEPA if they lived next to Pender Place. This conflagration of over-sized development, overlooking one’s home without any respect to the residents of an area, is unacceptable and is an example of what should not happen.
But back to Gozo. Visiting Ramla Valley after so many years, I was struck by the expanse of the abandoned Ulysses Lodge. If I had bought the Ulysses block I would been flabbergasted to learn that MEPA wanted me to keep it as is. Anyone who has a million to spare and throw it away then please ask MEPA for help.
I looked to the right of the Lodge and noted the relatively recent flats on the Xaghra ridge. They were far uglier than Ulysses Lodge. One of those flats is the home of one of the main opponents of the Ramla developers’ plan to convert Ulysses Lodge to villas.
Talking to oneself is one of the signs of middle age, so as I looked on braving the force 9 winds at the garbage strewn entrance of Calypso’s Cave, I could not help asking myself: if MEPA or some other relevant authority issued permits for the ugly box-like flats over Ramla, then by what stretch of the imagination should anyone object to the demolition of Ulysses Lodge to make way for villas?
The answer, Dear Watson, does not lie in the sudden greening of MEPA, but more interestingly in the political sensitivity to the protests that took place over Ramla. MEPA, being an instrument in the hands of politicians, ultimately does exactly what politicians tell it to do.
This administration is so sensitive to losing votes that it is willing to give in to a bunch of screaming cockatiels. Ramla Valley was the mother of all U-turns and to tell you the truth, as I watched some of the protestors walk by I asked myself: was it all about Ramla?
We are all hypocrites, by the way. But until going to print, I do not own a flat over Ramla and do not object to golf courses on the premise that they need too much water, while at the same time pouring valuable fresh water in a swimming pool. For the simple reason that I do not have a swimming pool, yet!
That is not to say that I will never do such a thing, but as things stand I think that it is very unlikely. Some of the prominent tree huggers who protest about golf courses and bring with them all the data about how much water a golf course will consume, never ask themselves how much fresh water their swimming pools require to float their green plastic crocodiles in the torrid Maltese summer. And likewise they never question where the water that keeps their silly lawn green originates from.
Don’t be fooled, I am not for development at Ramla or Ta’ Cenc. When I walked down to Ramla Bay I could not help looking at the board that had in 1995 announced with much fanfare the Ramla Bay project sponsored by the EU life project and BOV and others. Needless to say, the only part of the project that still survives is the board.
Otherwise the sand dunes continue to fall apart and since 1995, a new establishment has mushroomed and with it the entrepreneurial spirit of making commerce at the expense of that environment.
This token environmentalism is disgusting.

As you drive down to Dwejra there is a sign about luxurious apartments – yet again – and there to your left, a big hole in the ground and just 50 metres down the road a smallish sign announcing that you have entered the Dwejra Heritage Park.
It is a joke, of course. Since the erection of this sign, the very special stretch of rare trees known as Chaste Trees (Virgi, in Maltese) and renowned for having been sought by Gozo’s religious to minimise their sex drive, were destroyed by vandals who burnt them down. A heritage park indeed!

The situation in Gozo is worrying. Hundreds of farmhouses and apartments have mushroomed and as is the case in Malta there is a massive glut in property. No one will admit it.
More so, real estate agents will never admit it – it is not in their interest to state that there is a surplus – but speculators, or call them what you will, are finding it a serious problem to sell. The only thing that makes them survive is their vocation to hide their real earnings and their expertise in having made over 300 per cent profit when the market was at its best in the mid-1990s. Today those profits are down to 20 to 30 per cent.
In the face of all this, the administration has time to worry over the judge who spoke his mind, but no time to look into a holistic approach to limiting permits and saving Gozo from the concrete mania.
And as I dug into a hideout in a hotel in Xlendi – not the one owned by you know who – the rains came down in torrential style. It was for all to see, the wisdom of our administration and our developers. Lunzjata Valley, the luscious giant reed valley, carried tonnes of water downstream. But there was nowhere for it to go.
The road that carries Xlendi’s so-called main avenue, with its modern amenities including two ATMs, was turned into a river, not a rivulet. Anyone with any sense would have told the road architects that this was bound to happen once an age-old valley is blocked by a long wall of garages and asphalted roads.
And probably as is the case with B’Kara road in Msida, the experts will argue for years about a contingency plan to solve the flooding problem by building a delicate array of canals and what not.
But then again, the simple solution was not to build a road over a valley. Elementary Dr Watson, I guess.

sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt