Ċaqnu’s supermarket: PA appeals against compensation to former owners

The Planning Authority has appealed a court judgment awarding €331,295 in compensation for discrimination to landowners denied a permit to develop a garden centre, on land where construction magnate Charles Polidano later was awarded a PA permit for a supermarket in 2007.

The court found a “clear case of distinct treatment”, ruling that the original landowners had been prejudiced by the PA’s preferential behaviour after hearing that within a year, Polidano acquired the land and obtained a supermarket permit which he sold to the Lidl supermarket chain for three times the price he had originally paid.

In the proceedings the Planning Authority had argued that the supermarket was developed on a larger plot of land, and that the actual supermarket building was not developed on the site previously identified for a garden centre, because that land had been later used for the supermarket’s landscaping and parking area.

Three applications to develop a garden centre outside the development zone on Qormi Road, Luqa had been turned down in quick succession in the 1990s. Although plans were modified to allow most of the land to be taken up by greenhouses, the authority said that any construction could not be higher than the airport perimeter fence. Objections were presented by the Civil Aviation Directorate and MIA because the plot fell within the airport’s “blue area” and could present a hazard to flying aircraft.

In 1995, the family sold a parcel of the land to J.D.G Properties at Lm15,000 (€34,950) and the rest to developer Charles Polidano at Lm100,000 (€230,000) in 2007. That same year Polidano bought the other plot from J.D.G Properties at Lm500,000, (€1.16 million), and a supermarket permit was approved in March that year. Four months later, Polidano sold the site of the current Lidl supermarket for Lm1.99 million (€4.63 million).

In his judgement Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti said it was “contradictory” and “illogical” that a garden centre was deemed as too commercial for the area, whereas a supermarket was acceptable. This was a “clear case of distinct treatment for no valid reason at law… to the detriment of the applicants.”

The Court observed that the value of the land in 2007, with permits, would have been €564,295. Working out the difference between that value and the selling price paid to the applicants, the court awarded them €331,295 in damages.

The case had initially been investigated by the PA’s former internal auditor Joe Falzon, who way back in 2009 had called for disciplinary action against employees of the PA’s planning directorate who approved the Polidano supermarket. Falzon, since then vindicated by the court sentence, had called on the PA to refer the case for investigation of “possible criminal responsibility” over what he called “a gross irregularity”.

In 2009 the case was instead referred to an internal inquiry board composed of PA board members Joe Tabone Jacono, Charles Bonnici and Joseph Farrugia. The inquiry centred on the role of case officer Norbert Gerada and then team manager Silvio Farrugia, whom the panel interviewed. The investigation found no criminal intent on the part of the PA officials involved, but that the PA board which had been “positively inclined towards the project”, did so on the basis of plans that did not correspond to the approved project.

The PA has ruled out another inquiry on the issue of the permit following the court judgement, which it is now contesting.