Illegal beachclub in Portomaso to be regularised

A 17-year saga on the regularisation of various illegalities on a 3,670 square metre beach club within the Portomaso enclave, is nearing its end after a case officer report has recommended the regularisation of this development.

The illegalities included extensive paving of parts of the shoreline.

The application presented in 1999, when an enforcement order against the illegalities was issued, seeks to regularise the existing beach club and the stores constructed below it and seven boathouses at the entrance of the marina.

It also envisions an extension of the beach club and the reconstruction of an existing lighthouse which will now be reconstructed at a higher level of 1.2 metres.

The owners’ failure to remove these illegalities was one of the reasons why the Planning Authority board chaired by Austin Walker had turned down the development of 46 villas on a nearby site previously designated as an ecological zone.

But the permit was still issued by an appeals tribunal after the change in government.

A report by an environmental consultant hired by the developers to assess the environmental impact of these illegalities states that the “extent of built development is significantly more extensive than envisaged in the permit.

“The whole of the site has been built up and hard surfaced whereas the original permit envisaged a relatively extensive area of soft landscaping,” which also separated the pill box from the clubhouse.

It also notes that the beach club as constructed immediately abuts on the World War II pillbox.

But the report states that probably the development did involve take up of the rocky foreshore and mostly affected an area subjected to dumping in the 1950s which was later colonised by vegetation. The area on which part of the development is set to take place is a level 3 area of ecological importance.

MEPA’s Environment Planning Directorate had expressed its concern on “the encroachment on the coast” and the “obliteration of the buffer zone” between the pillbox and the clubhouse.

But the Planning Directorate concluded that the boathouses do not have any visual impact, as they do not exceed the height of the sea wall.
As regards the beach club it noted that the area was over excavated to make room for the stores. But since these were located beneath the beach club they have no impact.