Permit for Balluta church parking revoked

The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal has revoked a permit for an underground car park in the former Carmelite convent grounds at Balluta.

The permit had been issued despite an unequivocal objection by the Carmelite Order, which owns the site.

Plans presented with the application had proposed relocating the existing statue of the Virgin Mary and 11 olive trees and two palm trees to the car park’s roof, to make way for three underground levels and a ground-floor level of parking.

The tribunal decision effectively closes the chapter on a saga that started in 2011 when the order’s former prior, Anthony Cilia, had leased the site to his brother John Cilia.

In 2023, the court annulled the controversial lease, which was being contested by the order, now under a different leadership, and the Maltese diocese.

The outline planning permit was approved in November 2019 on the basis of the lease agreement.

Before issuing the permit, the Planning Commission had asked the case officer to seek legal advice due to the objection presented by the Carmelite Order.

The authority’s legal office replied that since the applicant had a lease agreement, which contemplated a car park, the applicant did not need “additional consent” from the owner.  The order had even presented a judicial protest asking the PA to stop processing the application. But the PA insisted that it was legally obliged to process the application on the basis of the lease agreement.

Despite the legal reply, Planning Commission chairperson Elisabeth Ellul still voted against approval but was outvoted by two other board members—Anthony Borg and Claude Mallia.

In its latest decision the tribunal noted that the applicant, John Cilia, and the Planning Authority were well aware that the lease agreement was being contested by the Carmelite Order.

The latest ruling follows the 2023 court decision, which saw the church winning back the land on which the car park was being proposed.

The court had ruled that the Carmelite Order’s decision to sub-lease the land to a private developer in 2011 was in breach of the contract by which the land was originally donated in 1890. The original donation contract stipulated that the land on Tower Road in Sliema could only be used for religious reasons.

Meanwhile, in February last year, the Carmelite Order announced it was withdrawing from Balluta and Mdina because of a decrease in the number of vocations.