Despite 1,800 objections to flats, NGOs fear threat to Ġgantija heritage zone

The Superintendence of Culture Heritage is being accused of not supporting its previously cautious approach to a three-storey development that will impact views in the Ġgantija Area of Archaeological Importance.

Environmental NGOs who want to defend the historical setting of Xagħra’s Ta’ Kola windmill believe the newly-staffed Superintendence of Cultural Heritage “has performed one of its increasingly frequent U-turns.”

The development in question is a 24-apartment block overlooking Ġgantija World Heritage Site, which has generated 1,800 objections.

The SCH initially emphasised that the site, within the Ġgantija Area of Archaeological Importance and 30m of the Grade 1 Mithna Ta’ Kola, as well as within 260m of the Ġgantija World Heritage Site, should “not... negatively impact the perception of the scheduled windmill or Ġgantija.”

Seven months later, the Superintendence declared that the developers’ photomontages do not indicate any significant impact on the perception of the windmill.

But Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar complained that this claim overlooked the fact that the photomontages fail to show the unsightly, three-storey blank party wall that will be created, and that such walls are not permitted in Urban Conservation Areas (UCAs) as they violate the Structure Plan.

Victor Borg, speaking for the eNGOs, also said the architect’s streetscape drawing was misleading in its portrayal of neighbouring building heights, in order to to justify the height of this building.

“When the objectors quoted examples of nearby applications that had been refused, they were silenced by the Planning Authority chairman, who repeatedly defended the application, ignoring every policy infringement raised by Victor Borg, Astrid Vella, (FAA) and Romano Cassar, NGO representative on the PA Board,” FAA said.

FAA also said the Superintendence had noted that the development indicated “significant impact on existing views and vistas as seen from Ġgantija” and called for the removal of the uppermost floor. Developers only reduced the development by just one apartment, something which quelled the Superintendence’s original concerns.

“As this site is located at a bottle-neck in this village lane, the traffic to be generated by this project, will also undermine the residential amenity of this once-peaceful hamlet on the edge of Xagħra,” FAA said.

“The project will destroy a beautifully-intact vernacular building, which heritage protection policies would normally call to be preserved, not destroyed for a block of flats that is totally unsuited to the edge of the Ġgantija buffer zone. This lone structure will block the green corridor that connects the Ġgantija park to its ODZ context, and being on the side of a ridge edge, it will create blank party walls which will ruin the character of the place,” FAA said.

“Two weeks ago the Planning Authority announced with great fanfare the preservation of a Cospicua Baroque house, essentially a foreign architectural style, yet it is now recommending the destruction of of Gozo’s own vernacular architecture. Was the Bormla scheduling a flash in the pan because no developer is interested in it, while our very own identity is to be betrayed and destroyed for thirty pieces of silver?”