Planning CEO opposes Villa Rosa local plan review, earns prime minister’s rebuke

The Planning Authority’s draft proposal outlining how the Villa Rosa site in St George’s Bay should be developed was opposed by its own CEO, MaltaToday has learnt.

Johann Buttigieg was against the proposed partial local plan review when it was discussed internally, according to sources privy to the authority’s inner workings.

“The PA CEO particularly objected to the proposed height limitations set out by the new plans,” the source said.

Consequently, Buttigieg is understood to have voted against the proposed draft. The source said that Buttigieg’s stand earned him rebuke from Prime Minister Robert Abela, who has been a supporter of the Villa Rosa local plan review since the subject was broached last year.

Cabinet had agreed on a partial review of the North Harbour local plan, specifically the Villa Rosa site, in October last year after Abela pushed for the process to kick off.

At the time, Villa Rosa developer Anton Camilleri, who had proposed new plans for the site and was keen to have the local plan amended, had met Abela and Opposition Leader Bernard Grech separately.

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The existing local plan limits development on the Villa Rosa site to a maximum of six to seven floors. However, the PA contends that the 2014 Hotel Heights Adjustment Policy, applicable in two zones within the site that can also accommodate standalone buildings, in principle have no capping on building heights. It argues that the proposed changes would impose a height limit.

However, the draft plan, which was published for public consultation on 29 April, is broadly in line with a development application presented by Anton Camilleri in 2023.

Camilleri’s pending proposal is for a 34-storey tower next to Bay Street and another 27-storey tower right in the middle of the 50,000sq.m site and a large public square between the two buildings.

The partial local plan review proposed by the PA has parcelled the Villa Rosa site in 12 zones with different building heights.

The highest development is set to rise to 39 floors in the zone closest to the Bay Street complex, while a 22-storey development is being envisaged in two other zones—a site immediately adjacent to the gardens surrounding Villa Rosa, and another closer to the DB project.

Patrick Calleja, president of heritage NGO Din l-Art Ħelwa, writing in MaltaToday says it is of “great concern” that the local plan has been “dictated” by the developer’s proposal.

“The revised local plan objectives for the Villa Rosa site are, however, derived entirely from the monstrous project proposed and drawn up by the developer and not, as it should be, the other way around—any development proposals should be defined and constrained by the previously approved local plans,” Calleja writes.

He also calls for an investigation over what he describes as a “manipulated” consultation process on the objectives launched last October, which eventually led to the latest draft local plan proposal.

“In this farcical consultation, the PA responded to many of the first phase public submissions stating that they had allegedly received over 4,200 submissions in support of the original review objectives… Judging from the timing of the developer’s public announcement of the number of approving submissions received by the PA, almost immediately after the first phase of the consultation was closed and before any official reports were published by the PA, it seems that the process was unethically manipulated and was therefore contaminated,” Calleja claims.

When the draft plan was published MaltaToday had flagged a possible discrepancy between the number of objections listed by the PA—43—and those submitted through Moviment Graffitti’s online facility, which totalled over 3,000.

Nonetheless, the PA stood by its figures. “It is absolutely not in our interest to hide any figures and we have published all the objections we have received,” a PA spokesperson had told MaltaToday, excluding any devious intentions on their part.

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