PA recommends refusal of Żabbar ODZ elderly home ahead of election

The decision on a massive elderly home on protected ODZ land in Żabbar is set to be decided by the Planning Board on 14 May—just two weeks before the general election.

But the case officers are recommending the project’s refusal on environmental grounds.

The application by developer Clinton Spiteri proposes a four-storey elderly home with three basement levels on more than 4,000sq.m of agricultural land overlooking Wied ta’ Mazza along Triq Wied il-Għajn.

The development would include 92 rooms accommodating more than 200 residents, a dementia day centre, pharmacy, pool, gym, mortuary and 153 underground parking spaces.

In a strongly worded recommendation, Planning Authority officials concluded that the project is “unacceptable” because it would urbanise a protected rural landscape lying entirely outside the development zone (ODZ).

The site falls within an Agricultural Area, a Valley Protection Zone and an Area of Ecological Importance and Scientific Importance protected under the South Malta Local Plan.

Case officers warned that the project would intensify visual intrusion into a sensitive valley landscape and irreversibly alter the rural character of the area.

“The proposed development is inappropriate within the surrounding context,” the report states, noting that the area is dominated by farmland and open countryside.

The negative recommendation is being made despite policies allowing old people’s homes among the few forms of large-scale social infrastructure that can, in exceptional cases, be considered on ODZ land under Malta’s Strategic Plan for Environment and Development (SPED).

However, planners stressed that the policy only allows such development where no feasible alternatives exist within development zones. In this case, the applicant’s own site selection exercise identified a Marsaskala site within the development zone as the most suitable option. Officials concluded that the Żabbar site “can never be acceptable from a planning point of view as it is protected from development”.

The Environment and Resources Authority also objected, warning that the proposal would result in the “uptake of ODZ land to accommodate urban uses” and insisting that such projects should be restricted to already urbanised areas.

Because the scheme was considered objectionable “in principle”, ERA  did not even request the full Environmental Impact Assessment normally required for projects of this scale in environmentally sensitive areas.

The proposal first sparked controversy last summer when it was revealed by MaltaToday that the development would occupy agricultural land linking Żabbar to Marsaskala.

The project triggered objections from NGOs including Moviment Graffitti and Din l-Art Ħelwa, both of which argued that the scale of the building was incompatible with the surrounding rural landscape and contradicted national planning policy protecting ODZ land.

The Żabbar Local Council  led by Labour mayor Jorge Grech also objected, arguing that alternative sites exist within the locality’s development boundaries and warning that the project would lead to “extensive take-up of undeveloped rural land”.

The issue also caused controversy in the local council. During a council meeting in April, PN councillors stopped short of formally endorsing the project but voted against the council objecting to it.

PN minority leader Joseph Buttigieg argued that Żabbar needed an elderly home and cited existing planning policies allowing such facilities on ODZ land in exceptional circumstances. He reportedly said he would have opposed the project if it were an apartment block, but viewed an elderly home differently because older residents were being forced to leave the locality to find accommodation elsewhere.

The Planning Board’s decision on 14 May comes in the middle of the electoral campaign, potentially turning into an occasion for the government to show that it is listening to growing concerns on over development in Labour’s core constituencies.