Gaffarena applies to legalise Qormi illegalities

The owner of a Qormi petrol pump station that is fraught with illegalities has applied for their sanctioning from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

Proprietor Johann Gaffarena has not only applied to sanction illegalities on the site of an outside-development-zone (ODZ) petrol station in Qormi, which had been refused by MEPA in 2011, but has now applied to construct a 31-square metre food and beverage outlet, with six car washes on the same site.

MEPA is currently drafting a new policy to regulate the development of petrol stations in ODZ areas.

No such policy currently exists, although a number of ODZ petrol stations have already been approved.   

Gaffarena was awarded a permit to erect the petrol station in 2007, but subsequent additions were made without any MEPA permit.

The illegal works at the petrol station on Luqa Road, Qormi, included the construction of a first floor over and above the height permitted for the petrol station.

In January 2011 the MEPA board turned down the sanctioning of extension works to the petrol station, because the illegalities on site were resulting in the further intensification of urbanisation outside the development zone.

On that occasion, both the government and Opposition representatives on the MEPA board voted in favour of sanctioning the illegal extension of the ‘J Gaff’ petrol station in Qormi, but were easily outvoted by chairman Austin Walker and seven other board members.

In 2011, Labour MP Roderick Galdes – who represented the Opposition on the MEPA board – insisted that board members take in consideration the location of the development and “the improvements to the infrastructure and the investment made”.

While condemning the developer for building without a permit, Galdes pointed out that the area was on the edge of the ODZ boundary, and was already committed for development to the extent that there were other buildings all along the same road. The MP also complained about the lack of a planning policy regulating petrol stations. “Various two-storey petrol stations have been approved by MEPA in ODZ areas in the past years because the these require ancillary services which require space,” Galdes had said.

His vote contrasted with the Labour media’s relentless reports on the issue: it was Labour weekly KullHadd that revealed, in October 2009, that Enemalta had supplied the petrol station with electricity, despite the lack of a compliance certificate.

Like Galdes, former Nationalist MP Joe Falzon (then the PN’s board member on MEPA) complained about the lack of a policy to regulate this development. He had told MEPA board members that Gaffarena had, through his lawyer, offered to change the use of the second floor to one that was ancillary to the petrol station, and bind himself to do so by a public deed.

During that same meeting, a prominent role was taken by judge emeritus Giovanni Bonello, who countered Gaffarena’s lawyers’ claims that the development should be approved because of past precedents. Bonello argued that while precedent applied to legal developments, “it did not apply to illegalities”.

Lawyers Ian Refalo and George Hyzler, who represented Gaffarena, claimed that other petrol stations had been allowed to have a second floor even though they were outside development zones.

Gaffarena applies for warehouses in Kirkop

MEPA is currently assessing an application presented by Mark Gaffarena, a shareholder in the ‘J Gaff’ same petrol station, to construct 33 warehouses in an ODZ area at Tal-Ponta, in Kirkop. 

A project development statement justifies this development, as it would relocate panel beaters, sprayers and mechanics from residential areas to a degraded site, which is close to quarries and construction plants.