Xuereb Tower : a social impact assessment

Abstract

In May 2021, Prof. Marvin Formosa and Dr Maria Brown were commissioned a Social Impact Assessment on Planning Authority case PA 6097/20, referred to as ‘Xuereb Tower’ in this report. The proposal is for a 33-storey building comprising an underground parking of 4 floors that would include 140 parking spaces accessible to the public against payment; open spaces accessible to public at street level; retail outlets; offices; a restaurant; a hotel of 11 rooms; and 58 serviced apartments. The proposal also includes a pedestrian passage between Elija Zammit Street and St Augustine Street as an alternative to the motorway leading from Swieqi Tunnels to Elija Zammit Street. The project is planned to take about three and a half years to be completed and become operational. For this assessment, fieldwork was carried out and survey data was collected during the period June - July 2021. The herein document is a report of this assignment. It contains an exposition of its findings as based on a myriad of primary and secondary sources that included published material, semi-structured interviews, elite interviews and a survey questionnaire. Heartfelt gratitude goes to the many people who granted much of their valuable time to put forward their personal views and insights on the possible and perceived social impact of the proposed development. It is augured that this report leads towards more informed decisions concerning the construction and operations of the proposed development project.