How a 16-floor hotel was approved on The Strand

The imposing 16-storey-high Medasia hotel, currently in the final phase of construction, is very hard to miss. The shell dominates the skyline on The Strand in Gżira, dwarfing even the high hotels and apartment blocks in its immediate vicinity.
The new hotel has added to the cacophony of differing building heights on The Strand and

left many wondering whether it really conforms with the height limitations in the area. Hotels are allowed two extra floors as per policy regulating hotel heights and an extra storey as per the local plan. But the new hotel seems to defy these heights.

(Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday)

Approved plans forming part of the planning application (PA 2601/24) show the approved building rising three floors above the height limitation on The Strand as allowed by policy. But on more careful inspection, one also notices in the plans a faint, barely noticeable mysterious line drawing of two other floors rising above them.

No photomontages were ever presented in the application process showing the visual impact of the development on its surroundings, as was the case with two neighbouring hotel developments proposed by Carlo Stivala, which were also controversially approved.

In fact, it turns out that the Medasia hotel was approved last year by calculating its maximum height from It-Telgħa tal-Belveder—a very narrow uphill footpath intersecting with Belveder Terrace—in a way that the development was stepped down from the alley to The Strand to conform with the height limitations of both streets on the basis of a policy normally applied to sloping sites.

(Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday)

This was confirmed by the Planning Authority, whose spokesperson explained that the height limitation calculated on the extra three floors allowed by policy “was calculated from the highest site level being from Telgħa tal-Belveder, stepping down to Triq ix-Xatt”, which has the same height limitation but is located at a lower level.

The PA spokesperson insisted that this was done in accordance with Policy P36, which regulates development on sloping sites. This policy was also invoked in the case officer report recommending approval. This same policy was recently invoked to justify the approval of a 13-storey hotel in Xlendi proposed by developer Joseph Portelli.

The policy states that “development or redevelopment located along sloping sites or streets will be bound by the height limitation along the depth of the site and/or along the street”. This policy is enforced by stepping down the development from the street on top of the slope to the site located at the lowest level, with the height on each side based on the height limitation on each side.

But the same policy is qualified by a proviso that the building design is “visually appropriate and will not result in excessive bulk or mass”.

A planning expert consulted by this newspaper expressed doubts about whether It-Telgħa tal-Belveder can effectively be considered a road or a street, considering its very narrow width.

In fact, this ‘street’ is not even mentioned in the address given for the application as published on the PA’s website, which refers to the site as Triq ix-Xatt, Triq Sant Agata and an alley off Triq is-Sacra Cour.

But a case officer report for another permit issued for a hotel in the same location by the same applicant but over a smaller footprint in 2018 refers to an email in December 2017 from the Planning Control Unit “confirming that Triq it-Telgħa tal-Belveder is a schemed road”.

The reply was given to the developer’s architect, who had asked for “an official confirmation that Telgħa tal-Belveder is actually a public pedestrian street, not a private street”.

The Medasia hotel application was submitted by Joseph Casha on behalf of Pebbles Beach Company Limited.