Xlendi high-rise deferred again: Gozitans fear valley ‘will be Dubai-ified’

Watch: Objectors in uproar over Xlendi high-rise case deferral
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**“We’re being strung along while the valley dies,”** one Gozitan pensioner shouted from the back of the chambers on Thursday afternoon, seconds after the Planning Authority (PA) board voted to defer its decision on the 12-storey Xlendi hotel tower for a third time. Mobile phones shot up, live-streaming the chaos that followed: residents waving placards printed with *“Xlendi is not Dubai”*, environmental NGOs drumming on recycled plastic buckets, and a trio of summer-bar owners who had closed shop early to attend the hearing, still smelling faintly of frying calamari and sea-salt.

The proposed development—slated for the verdant valley mouth that funnels into Xlendi Bay—would add 200 hotel beds, 92 underground parking spaces and a rooftop pool 38 metres above the current skyline. Architect Edward Said, representing the Gozo Ministry-backed applicant, insists the design is “a contemporary interpretation of the traditional *kazin* silhouette”. Objectors counter that the height breaches the 2016 Gozo & Comino Local Plan by almost double, and would cast afternoon shadows across the bay’s Roman salt-pans, still used by local families to harvest *ħobż biż-żejt* seasoning.

**Cultural nerve touched**
Xlendi isn’t just another postcard inlet; it is the weekend living room of Gozo. Generations of Maltese families have taken the 25-minute ferry crossing to eat rabbit stew at Restorant Ta’ Karolina, then plunged off the limestone promontory known as *il-ħofra* (the hole). The bay’s 17th-century tower, built by the Knights to ward off corsairs, now features in thousands of TikTok reels tagged #MaltaSummer. “If this tower goes up, our children will grow up thinking Xlendi was always a canyon of concrete,” said 28-year-old diving instructor Luca Vella, who learned to swim here while his grandfather sold *pastizzi* from a wicker basket.

The deferral, justified by the PA as “further technical clarifications on heritage impacts”, means the file will slip into the post-election calendar. Sources inside the authority told *Hot Malta* that two government appointees asked for more shadow-studies after pressure from the Gozo Tourism Association, which argues the island needs four-star stock to compete with Sicily’s all-inclusive resorts. But the timing fuels suspicion. “They’re waiting for us to tire out,” claimed Victoria mayor Paul Azzopardi, who bussed in 120 residents on Thursday. “Summer season ends, students go back to university, and suddenly there’s no one left to object.”

**Economic fault-lines**
While the developer promises 120 construction jobs and 80 permanent posts, Xlendi’s existing hoteliers fear oversupply. “We refurbish with our own savings; they get tax rebates for erecting a skyscraper,” complained Maria Farrugia, whose three-star guesthouse has been family-run since 1973. A study by the Gozo Business Chamber shows the bay already loses €250,000 annually through coastal erosion and storm-drain siltation; opponents argue a high-rise would accelerate runoff, jeopardising the seaweed-covered reefs that attract 15,000 certified divers each year.

**What happens next**
The PA has given the applicant 60 days to submit additional photomontages from the sea and from the Citadel bastions, a UNESCO vantage point. Meanwhile, activist group Moviment Graffitti is collecting signatures for a judicial protest, citing breach of the European Landscape Convention. They have also called for a national *fjakkola* (torch) procession on the eve of the next hearing, evoking the 1990s campaign that stopped a marina in nearby Marsalforn.

As the crowd spilled out of the PA’s Santa Venera headquarters on Thursday, heckling parliamentary secretaries over the din of car horns, one 14-year-old girl held up a hand-painted sign: *“You can defer paper, not the tide.”* Her parents, both seasonal chefs in Xlendi, had taken the day off unpaid. Whether the tide of public anger proves stronger than the tide of concrete remains, for now, as murky as the silt clouding Xlendi’s turquoise shallows.