Developers insist on seven floors on mega rationalisation site in Swatar

Note: Former Malta Developers Association president Sandro Chetcuti, entrepreneur James Barbara, were both listed as owners in the original application documents. After reaching out to MaltaToday to explain that they no longer own the plots, reference to them was removed

Developers are insisting on a building height of 22 metres, the equivalent of seven floors, on a large site in Swatar that was added to the development zones in 2006. 

The site, which is the size of 17 football pitches, is behind St Martin’s College in Msida and is largely farmland. 

This emerges from the latest plans submitted on 17 December, which reiterate a demand made in the original plans submitted seven years ago. The application had been in a state of hibernation since 2021, when the last plans were submitted. 

The proposed height is based on a four-storey building with a semi-basement limit set out in the local plan, which is converted into a 22-metre height under Annex 2 of the Development Control Design Policy. This annex translates building heights expressed in floors into metric limits. 

The zoning application has been pending for the past seven years. The owners have presented plans envisaging more than 11,000sq.m of commercial development, 31,500sq.m of mixed residential and commercial development, and 16,000sq.m of purely residential development on the 115,454sq.m site. The proposed development would occupy around 70% of the site. 

The landowners include S.C. & Co Limited, PD Finance Limited, Paul Vella’s P&S Ltd, Anton Camilleri’s Camcas Ltd, several other individual owners, and the government. 

The local plan stipulates that the Planning Authority should prepare a development brief for the area before any private development is considered.  

It also states that the brief should prioritise “low traffic-generating” employment uses, with preference given to ancillary uses related to Mater Dei Hospital and the University of Malta. However, in 2019 a spokesperson for the Planning Authority told MaltaToday that it had no intention of issuing such a brief for public consultation and would instead consider the zoning application submitted by the site’s owners. 

Subsequently, the application was reworded to seek a change to the local plan in order to establish the road network, building heights, zoning conditions and development parameters. A traffic impact assessment was also requested by the Planning Authority in 2020. The results of this study have still not been made available to the public. 

Plans submitted by the developers indicate that 22.1% of the site would be designated as green space. However, the mapped green areas are elongated in shape, suggesting that much of this space would effectively consist of front gardens rather than substantial open areas. 

In 2019, the Msida Local Council objected to the application, arguing that the proposed building heights and density were excessive. 

The site is one of the largest areas added to development zones in the 2006 rationalisation exercise. It is bounded by Triq Dun Karm Bypass, Triq is-Swatar, Triq Indri Grima and Triq Monsinjur Innocenz Zammit, and currently consists mainly of agricultural land, alongside a number of old farmhouses, rubble walls and some dwellings.