‘No Towers in Gozo’: Minister Alex Borg Sparks Viral Uproar Over Sky-High Plans

Watch: ‘I do not want towers in Gozo’: Alex Borg
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Gozo’s skyline—and soul—are once again at the centre of a heated national debate after Infrastructure Minister Alex Borg stared down the camera and declared, “I do not want towers in Gozo.”
The 18-second clip, filmed outside the Ministry in Valletta and uploaded to TikTok late Tuesday night, has already racked up 312 000 views, 42 000 likes and 8 700 comments, catapulting the sleepy sister island’s future into every Sunday lunch conversation from Marsaxlokk to Mellieħa.

For mainlanders who treat Gozo as a weekend refuge of vineyards, Baroque churches and Instagrammable salt pans, the minister’s sound-bite feels almost quaint—until you remember that three high-rise applications are currently queued inside the Planning Authority’s computer system. Two are 31-storey hotel-and-apartment hybrids hovering over Marsalforn bay; the third is a 26-floor “eco-tower” promising luxury retirement flats with unobstructed views of the Azure Window… or at least where the limestone arch used to be before it crashed into the sea in 2017.

Borg’s statement matters because, for the first time, a sitting Nationalist minister has broken ranks with the pro-development chorus that has dominated Maltese politics since 2014, when the Labour government unveiled its “High-rise Policy” built around 17 strategic nodes. Gozo was quietly excluded from that map, but developers have exploited a grey clause that allows “iconic projects” anywhere once they promise job creation and “touristic accommodation.” The result: scale models that look more Dubai than Dwejra.

Local reaction has been swift and characteristically Gozitan. By Wednesday morning, the narrow streets of Victoria were buzzing with talk of “għaqda” (unity). Josephine Farrugia, 68, who still sells ħobż biż-żejt under the Citadel’s ramparts, summed up the mood: “We welcomed tourists because they came to see *us*, not to live above us in glass cages.” Over in Xewkija, Labour-leaning mayor Hubert Saliba told *Hot Malta* that “even my party’s core voters feel the island is being loved to death.” A snap survey run by the Gozo Business Chamber shows 74 % of respondents oppose towers taller than the 67-metre Xewkija Rotunda, long the island’s unofficial height ceiling.

Culturally, Gozo’s identity is stitched from low-rise farmhouses, village festa pyrotechnics and the quiet certainty that nobody is ever more than ten minutes from the sea. Towers, argue anthropologist Dr Graziella Vella, threaten more than panoramas. “Vertical living erodes the *piazza* culture that birthed 93 village feasts. Who will carry the saint’s statue when the young move out because Airbnb investors have priced them out?” she asks.

Economically, the stakes are equally high. Gozo currently attracts 1.2 million ferry passengers a year—double the 2009 figure—yet tourism revenue per capita lags 18 % behind Malta’s. Policy-makers insist high-end beds are the answer; critics counter that the island’s infrastructure is already creaking. Water tables are sinking faster than the biodegradable confetti from last August’s Santa Marija fireworks, and rush-hour queues at the Mġarr harbour routinely snake back to Ta’ Cenc cliffs.

Borg’s declaration also lands amid an election fever that never really cools in Malta. With European Parliament polls due in June and local councils up for grabs next year, both major parties are courting the 31 000 Gozitan votes that historically swing close national contests. Sources inside Castille tell *Hot Malta* that developers have been warned to “pause renders” until after the EP election, a claim the Office of the Prime Minister denies.

What happens next hinges on whether the minister’s words translate into policy. The PA can still override him if a project is deemed to have “national strategic importance,” a loophole that has green-lit everything from petrol stations to petrol-blue towers in St Julian’s. But Borg has one weapon his predecessors lacked: the 2021 Structure Plan for Gozo, a forgotten document that caps building heights at six storeys outside development zones. Drafted after 7 000 residents marched through Victoria under the banner “Gozo Not for Sale,” the plan was never formally approved—until now, insiders say, when it may be rushed to cabinet to give legal muscle to the minister’s viral moment.

For Gozitans like 19-year-old art student Maria Portelli, the timing feels existential. “We’re the generation that will inherit either a vertical playground or a living island,” she says, adjusting her canvas bag emblazoned with the slogan “Keep Gozo Grounded.” As the sun sets behind the Citadel and swallows swirl above baroque belfries, her words echo across the plaza: towers or timelessness—Malta’s second island can no longer accommodate both.