Xemxija Bay Under Siege: Ten Luxury Villas Threaten ODZ Countryside Opposite Mega-Project

**Ten ODZ Villas Proposed Opposite Planned Large Xemxija Project**

Xemxija Bay, the sleepy inlet whose honey-coloured ramparts have sheltered Roman grain stores, 17th-century fish farms and Sunday-morning bathers in equal measure, is bracing for a second development wave. Barely six months after the government issued a call for proposals to turn the neighbouring Mistra Valley into a “coastal experience hub” with restaurants, kayak rentals and a 450-space car park, a fresh application has landed at the Planning Authority: ten villas, each with pools, three-storey elevations and basement garages, to be carved into the agricultural terracing directly opposite the bay.

The site – a stepped slope of rubble walls, prickly pear and wind-bent olive trees – is officially tagged “outside development zone” (ODZ). Yet the applicant, a consortium linked to the same architects behind the Mistra project, argues the villas qualify as “high-quality, low-density agritourism” because each will feature a 200-year-old threshing floor in its landscaped garden. Local residents, who last week woke up to fresh survey stakes fluttering red ribbons above the valley, are unconvinced.

“This isn’t agritourism; it’s suburbanism with a fig leaf,” says Marlene Mifsud, president of the Xemxija Heritage Group. Mifsud, whose family has farmed the ridge since the 1920s, points out that the terraces are still worked by two full-time growers supplying the Sunday market in Mosta. “If you replace soil with infinity pools, where will the bees go? Where will the rainwater percolate? We’ve already lost the night sky to floodlights from the db project in St Paul’s; now we’re gifting them the dawn horizon too.”

The timing is politically delicate. Environment Minister Miriam Dalli has repeatedly promised a “rural-urban boundary freeze” until the much-delayed National Spatial Policy is finalised. Yet internal PA emails leaked to *Hot Malta* show officers advising that the villas could be approved under a 2021 legal notice that allows “farmhouses” of up to 600 m² in ODZ provided they are “predominantly masonry and respect traditional proportions”. Critics note the proposed structures exceed 800 m² each when basements are counted.

Xemxija’s parish priest, Fr. Joseph Borg, waded into the debate during last Sunday’s homily, reminding congregants that the bay’s name derives from *shems*, the Arabic word for sun. “The sun that warmed our ancestors should not become a spotlight for the privileged few,” he told the packed Baroque church. His words echoed a 1973 letter by Dom Mintoff, displayed on the noticeboard, in which the former prime minister warned that “every cube of concrete in Mistra is a nail in Malta’s coffin”.

Tourism operators fear the villas will accelerate the quiet exodus of returning visitors who cherish the north-west coast precisely because it is not lined with gated compounds. “Our clients come for the carob trails, the smell of wild fennel, the shepherd’s tracks that lead to Roman baths,” says Claire Bonello who runs a boutique walking-tour company. “You can’t sell ‘authentic Malta’ when the view from the Roman apiaries is a row of chlorinated splash pools.”

The developer’s environmental statement promises “enhanced public access” via a new 1.2-km footpath skirting the villas and replanting of 400 indigenous trees. But the PA’s own ecologist warns that the terraced landscape is a priority habitat for the endemic *Centaurea xemxijaensis*, a thistle-like plant found nowhere else on earth. Just 80 specimens remain, many directly under the proposed villa footprints.

Public consultation closes on 18 July. Already, 1,300 objections have been uploaded, including a handwritten petition from the Xemxija scout group whose troop hall overlooks the site. “We teach kids to knot ropes, not to jump into private pools,” says scout leader Luke Pace, 19. “If we let ODZ become a branding exercise, we’re telling them the countryside is just a backdrop for real-estate brochures.”

Whether the PA heeds the chorus will test the government’s green credentials less than a year before the European Parliament election. For a village that has survived Phoenician traders, Ottoman raids and package-tour high-rises, the stakes feel existential. As the sun sets behind Għallis tower, elderly swimmers gather on the slipway like they have every evening since the 1950s. “We’re not against progress,” says 82-year-old Ġanni Saliba, squeezing water from his moustache. “But progress should leave room for the tide to come in without asking permission from a security guard.”