Council calls for environmental impact assessment on Attard cemetery

A report sent to MEPA by Attard's local council calling for a full EIA on the cemetary development states, "This is vital in a project of this kind, and the council would have to be consulted at all times," states.

Luqa Developments, whose directors include Pio Camilleri - formerly a close collaborator of the late Lorry Sant - is proposing the project, which foresees 1,000 gravesites on a site outside development boundaries, along Mdina Road between Attard and Rabat. The project includes plans for Malta's first crematorium, as well as a room for multidenominational services.

The original application presented in 2010 referred to the development of a cemetery in collaboration with the Attard and Rabat local councils, but this reference was subsequently dropped.

The council report, prepared by an architect, states that the cemetery will inevitable result in a "visual intrusion in a highly sensitive site" and the plans fail to specify the entrance and the exit to the site from Imdina Road.

As regards the heavy landscaping being proposed, the council insists on a landscaping method statement, which takes into account the maintenance of the proposed trees and vegetation.

A project development statement presented by architectural firm Med Design to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in November 2012 states that the cemetery would be the first one in Malta to utilise cremation methods to dispose of the dead, resulting in a more efficient use of land.

The cemetery will also include a service room, described as "a place where people of diverse beliefs could worship in a serene manner."

The cemetery will also include a car park for 75 cars and a small retail outlet selling candles and flowers.

The developers claim that their goal is to provide the country with a "versatile cemetery."

The PDS states that 15% of pending applications for gravesites in Malta hail from Rabat and Attard, two localities whose cemeteries cannot be expanded. According to the PDS, 20,000 burials could be accommodated over a 20-year period in the new cemetary.

The developers who own the land in question justify the development by describing the site as an "unused bare dump," which is in a "very bad state of abandonment and currently used as a waste-dumping area."

In the local plan, the site is designated as a strategic open gap where no buildings can be developed.

The developers claim that in view of this designation, the development of a cemetery is "the best use for the site in question, to maximize the commercial potential of the site."

MEPA's Heritage panel has called for a rejection of the application, as it entails agricultural land appropriation adjacent to Wied ta' Rmiedi.