Store with a view: Garden of Eden wants to rebuild once-illegal rooms

Change of plans at the Zurrieq valley where most of the land is owned by the Garden of Eden wedding hall. Proprietor Maurizio Baldacchino wants to replace a cluster of rural structures that were regularised last May by the Planning Authority – against the advice of the Environment Resources Authority – with a 60sq.m “agricultural store” and basement.

The proposed store lies on a 3,500sq.m piece of land outside development zones, between Tal-Hniena and Gargir on the road down to Wied Babu, a Natura 2000 site.

Aerial photos from 1967 confirm the area was completely free from any development. But between 1978 and 1996, a cluster of six illegal rooms mushroomed in the area.

In 2017 Baldacchino requested the green light to demolish the more recent additions and regularise one room dating back to 1978 and three rooms constructed in 1988. Despite ERA objections, the permit was issued in May by the PA’s planning commission, chaired by Elizabeth Ellul.

The ERA deemed the structures excessive for the neighbouring agricultural plots, given that Baldacchino was not a registered farmer and no proof of arable farming in the area was ever submitted. It warned of possible future pressures for the change of use of the structures into non-rural uses like “animal parks and cafeterias” once the illegal development is regularised.

It also condemned the “practice of first carrying out illegal development without due consideration to the site’s rural setting and then applying for sanctioning of such works is objectionable in principle”.

Back in November 2016, the PA had approved another application – presented by another applicant – foreseeing an 80sq.m “store” with underlying basement further up on the steep side of the Babu valley, replacing three smaller and scattered rooms. ERA also considered the development excessive given that this farmer only tilled 1.2 tumoli of land, and had only been registered as a farmer for a “couple of months before the submission of the application.”

Baldacchino is also proposing the development of 14 ‘luxury’ bungalows instead of the Garden of Eden wedding hall complex and its adjacent, illegal carpark. In a bid to gain more time, his architect Ray Demicoli has asked for a suspension of the processing of this application.