PA approves Portelli’s block next to Ta’ Żejta water course in Gozo

The Planning Authority has approved a new apartment block consisting of 54 new apartments and 41 garages in Victoria, a few meters away from the Ta’ Żejta watercourse which serves as a popular recreational area for residents and their children.

The development as approved includes two basement levels - one of which partly rising above ground level, a ground floor and three overlying levels. Two swimming pools are being proposed at penthouse level.

The new block proposed by Mark Agius, a business partner of construction magnate Joseph Portelli, will occupy a largely undeveloped a site where the only existing building consists of an unfinished illegally constructed building dating back to the 1990s.

This application was originally approved in July 2022 but subsequently the permit was revoked by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal which ordered the re-assessment of the application.  

The Tribunal had also called for the building to be moved 4.5 metres back from the watercourse and for the height to be limited to the three floors approved in a zoning application approved in 2011. The zoning application approved in 2011 clearly referred to a height limitation of three floors “without basement or penthouses”.

The case officer justified approval because the development falls within the 12-meter height limit emerging from Annex 2 of DC15, which translates height limitations in floors to a height in meters. 

The approval comes in the wake of new plans submitted by the developer included revised basement plans and revisions to the Ground Investigation Report.

The Environment and Resources Authority failed to submit any feedback on the revised ground investigation and this was interpreted by the PA as a “no objection”.

Although the area was included in development zones in the infamous extension of building boundaries of 2006 development in the area is regulated by Policy GZ-EDGE-1, according to which the massing and facades of the new development, which overlooks ODZ areas, should be designed “in such a manner as to respect the traditional edge of settlement skylines.”

To mitigate the visual impact of the development a fake window was included in the blank party wall fronting the ODZ.  The case officer concluded that the external design “is visually appropriate with the surrounding environment.”