PA ignores breach of rules in pre-electoral Kalkara villa permits

The Planning Authority’s planning commission has issued a full permit for four villas outside development zones in Kalkara, that were granted a preliminary permit days before the last general election.

The commission’s members Elisabeth Ellul and Mariello Spiteri overturned the planning directorate’s insistence that the permit had been in breach of policies and should not be granted.

The preliminary permit on the vacant plot of land was issued despite four prior refusals by the Planning Authority for development on the same 1,400sq.m site, which includes two mature carob trees.

The proposal involves the construction of four terraced houses having a floor-space which varies between 233sq.m and 286sq.m, which means they go beyond the 200sq.m allowance for each dwelling unit.

But subsequently the case officer argued that although the development had been accepted in principle in May 2017, the proposed terraced houses exceeded the 200sq.m threshold of floor-space permitted in the local plan in a policy regulating development in the rural hamlet.

Moreover, according to the case officer “the proposed development exceeds the depth of the adjoining properties and will result in the overdevelopment of the site, in conflict with the objectives of Local Plan”.

However, the two-member board dismissed the case officer’s report citing part of the law stating that when taking a decision the board must have regard to “surrounding legal commitments.”

The project’s architect Robert Musumeci, who was representing applicant Norbert Bellia, had insisted that the building envelope had already been established in the outline permit and cited two previous cases within the Santu Rokku hamlet where the 200sq.m threshold was not applied.

The Environment and Resources Authority was also steadfast in its objections warning that the final approval of the proposal would constitute a precedent for similar development on existing vacant plots within the Santu Rokku hamlet, and would open the floodgates for other similar developments in similar locations.