Save our iconic skylines
The Malta Independent has on several occasions reported about the sorry state of our environment and how our beaches, valleys and iconic skylines are being devastated. A few months back we also wrote about the massive oil rig that has been berthed at the Palumbo shipyard for the better part of a year. The massive structure is visible from as far away as Mdina, is-Salib tal-Għolja in Siġġiewi, and Dingli Cliffs. People walking along the promenade in Vittoriosa or Cospicua will find that it dwarfs the Senglea parish church, rising from behind it like some giant metal tarantula.
Yesterday it was the Valletta 2018 Foundation’s turn to warn the government about the undesirable effect that the structure is having on our capital city and, indeed, the entire Grand Harbour region.
V18 Chairman Jason Azzopardi rightly argued that the structure, which is around 100 metres high, was “ruining the aesthetic of the Grand Harbour.” Micallef also said that he had spoken to a number of authorities but the V18 Foundation had been left in the dark.
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He will now be writing to the Lands Authority to see whether the shipyard operator was abiding by its conditions.
But while the V18 chairman is focusing on this one particular structure, a similar situation could develop just a short distance away, at the old shipbuilding site. A few months ago, the government proudly announced that the area would be turned into a an oil and gas maintenance facility, meaning that many more oil exploration and drilling platforms will be gracing our skyline over the coming years.
While one understands that a prime site like the one in Marsa should not be left abandoned and bereft of any commercial activity, such decisions always have undesired consequences.
The fact is that this goes beyond Valletta, V18 and oil platforms. Over the past couple of years Malta has become inundated in tower cranes. Village skylines, once defined by countless church steeples, have now been completely altered by the sight of cranes, cranes and more cranes. The situation will not change until the construction frenzy subsides, and it does not look that this will happen any time soon.
The source of the problem is, of course, not the cranes, for these can be dismantled and moved away once their job is done. The real problem is what we are using those cranes for – the countless high-rise towers that are either already under construction or in the pipeline.
Developers, it seems, are competing with each other in a race for who can build the tallest, brightest or most weird-looking structures. Even the government has applied to build a skyscraper. Time and time again, NGOs have warned the authorities that the damage being inflicted on the environment and our cultural heritage is irreversible but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The current administration, the pro-business government that it is, has done nothing to stop senseless overdevelopment, and by the time someone in power realises that we have taken it too far, it will be too late to fix things.