Update with PA statement below – 1,800 objections have been generated against an application to build a block of 24 apartments overlooking Ggantija World Heritage Site, in Xaghra, FFA said.
Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA) in a statement on Friday, said that the eNGOs defending the historical setting of Xaghra’s Ta’ Kola windmill at the Planning Authority were dismayed to witness a repeat of the ‘develop at all costs’ approach that the politicians “profess to be turning their backs on.”
Instead, it said, the Planning Authority is “still loyal to developers, while the newly-staffed Superintendence of Cultural Heritage has performed one of its increasingly frequent U-turns.
FAA pointed out that the SCH initially emphasised that “The site in question is within Ggantija Area of Archaeological Importance and within 30m of the Grade 1 Mithna Ta’ Kola. The site is also within 260m of Ggantija World heritage Site. Any development that may eventually be approved at this location is not to negatively impact the perception of the scheduled windmill or Ggantija.”
However, FAA said that just seven months later, the Superintendence declared “The photomontages do not indicate that the proposed development will have a significant impact on the perception of the scheduled windmill.”
“Yet this statement overlooks the fact that the photomontages failed to show the unsightly three-storey blank party wall that this development will create. Blank party walls are not permitted in Urban Conservation areas as they violate the Structure Plan,” FAA said.
Moreover, it said that Victor Borg, speaking for the eNGOs, proved that the architect’s streetscape drawing was “misleading in its portrayal of neighbouring building heights, in order to to justify the height of this building.”
Yet when the objectors quoted examples of nearby applications that had been refused, they said they were silenced by the Chairman, who repeatedly defended the application, ignoring every policy infringement raised by Victor Borg, Astrid Vella, (FAA) and Romano Cassar, NGO representative on the PA Board.
Similarly, FAA stated that in the application to build a block of 24 apartments overlooking Ggantija World Heritage Site, which generated 1,800 objections, the Superintendence had originally commented: “the latest proposal still indicates a significant impact on existing views and vistas as seen from Ggantija. In view of this, the uppermost floor is to be removed from the proposal.”
They argued that “with the reduction of just one apartment,” the Superintendence wrote on 3 August 2022 that these changes had “adequately addressed the concerns” of its previous letter of 23 February calling for the elimination of a whole floor.
As this site is located at a bottle-neck in this village lane, the traffic to be generated by this project, will also undermine the residential amenity of this once-peaceful hamlet on the edge of Xaghra,” FAA said.
It argued that “the project will destroy a beautifully-intact vernacular building which heritage protection policies would normally call to be preserved, not destroyed for a block of flats that is totally unsuited to the edge of the Ggantija buffer zone.”
FAA stressed that “this lone structure will block the green corridor that connects the Ggantija park to its ODZ context, and being on the side of a ridge edge, it will create blank party walls which will ruin the character of the place.”
Two weeks ago the Planning Authority announced with great fanfare the preservation of a Cospicua Baroque house, essentially a foreign architectural style, yet it is now recommending the destruction of of Gozo’s own vernacular architecture, it said.
“Was the Bormla scheduling a flash in the pan because no developer is interested in it, while our very own identity is to be betrayed and destroyed for thirty pieces of silver?” FAA asked.
Update – PA statement
The Planning Authority said that, “contrary to the insinuations in the statements issued by the eNGOs, during yesterday’s Planning Board public hearing, at no point did the chairman silence objectors’ or try defending application PA5562/21.”
It added that, “inversely, following several points raised by the objectors on the case, the Board requested further information and therefore deferred the case.”
Photos: by FAA