Cyprus Mail 14 February 2025 - by Tom Cleaver
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| File photo: Friends of Akamas protest the Limni development, June 2013 |
Plans to develop Limni Bay, to the northeast of Polis Chrysochous, are “extremely alarming”, Cyprus Ecological Movement secretary-general Efi Xanthou said on Friday.
She was speaking after it was reported by multiple outlets that the area, which was initially set to be developed into a hotel and golf course by the Cyprus Trading Corporation Plc (CTC), has been divided into two projects and sold.
“The reports that the area may be developed are extremely alarming. We have gone through many years trying to protect this area,” she told the Cyprus Mail.
She added that should any illegal development occur in the area, “we hope the environment department will not turn a blind eye as they did with the Polis Chrysochous hotel”.
In that, she was referring to the environment department’s approval of a €55m project to convert an existing tourist apartment complex into a 480-bed, 4-star hotel in Polis Chrysochous. The department deemed that an environmental impact assessment for the project was “unnecessary”.
Green party leader Giorgos Perdikis also spoke to the Cyprus Mail, explaining that his party had been against the original development plans for the area and that now, with reports surfacing of a new project, work would begin to examine its environmental viability.
“We had expressed throughout the years our opposition to the original construction project, with the golf courses and so on. Now, we must examine whatever the new plans may be before deciding what our position will be,” he said.
The area, which spans over 3.3 million square metres, was handed over by CTC to the Bank of Cyprus as part of a debt-to-asset swap worth around €93 million in 2018.
Now, according to the reports, the area has been split into two, with the inland section of the plot having been sold to a Cyprus-based group of companies which aims to build a solar farm on the land and the coastal area having been acquired by the Cyprus Union of Bank Employees (Etyk)’s provident fund.
News website Stockwatch reported that Etyk’s provident fund has around €500m in cash reserves and has “not yet made decisions” over what it wishes to do with the land it has purchased.
However, Stockwatch added, they had “found the Bank of Cyprus’ offer very tempting and decided to buy it”.
CTC’s original plan for the area included two golf courses, a five-star hotel, a wellness centre and residential units, with the golf courses’ design having reportedly been influenced by six-time Masters winner Jack Nicklaus. However, large parts of these plans now seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Newspaper Phileleftheros reported that a small pier which had been built by CTC is “close to being destroyed”, writing that local authorities have not maintained it since it was constructed.
The original project was cancelled in 2021, but not before the fight over whether it was right or legal to build in that area had made it all the way to the European Commission, with
As far back as 2015, the commission had sent a letter to the Cypriot government ordering it to cancel the planning permission issued for the project, pointing out that the land is part of the Natura 2000 network of protected areas and pointing out that the beach is a nesting site for loggerhead turtles.
At the time, then-environment commissioner Ioanna Panayiotou confirmed that the letter was 45 pages long and outlined its likely content.
“It is highly probable that the commission deemed the environmental impact studies filed by the company and accepted by the environment department as insufficient. The EU is extremely sensitive in these issues and probably wants to ensure that the turtle habitat won’t be disturbed,” she said.
“I always maintained that nothing should be built near the turtle beach. But since the project was underway, the very least we can do in make sure that the beach remains undisturbed,” she added.
The project dates back to 1983, when CTC owner Nicos Shacolas bought the abandoned Limni copper mine, with the initial hope of reopening it to mine more copper.
However, he quickly realised that mining copper would not be feasible and thus decided to open a golf course in the area and began buying up the surrounding land.
Steps were taken throughout the 2000s with the aim of allowing a golf course to open in the area, but the presence of loggerhead turtles on the beach, and the beach’s inclusion in the Natura 2000 network, proved a difficult hurdle for the plans, which were eventually shelved almost four decades later.
