Another hotel will be added in Tigné in Sliema after the Planning Authority approved the development in the already very congested area. Indeed, a traffic impact study indicated an 20 per cent increase in traffic.
The 90-room 10-storey hotel to be developed alongside a 28-storey tower as part of the so-called Townsquare Project which will also include an 800-car parking area with overlying retail outlets and the restoration of the historic Villa Drago which will also be used for retail, as well as two office blocks.
In another somewhat controversial decision the Planning Authority also approved the setting up of a 3,800 square metre solar farm just inland from Għadira beach. The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage objected to the project which is not only outside the development zone but is situated near an archaeological buffer zone of Bronze Age and Punic-Roman cart-ruts.
But the Architect responsible for this project said that the solar farm is to help Mellieħa Holiday Centre offset its carbon footprint. Following discussions with Birdlife the panels to be used will minimise the impact on migratory birds stopping at the reserve close by and will provide 42 per cent of the establishment, also known as the Danish Village.
But the Planning Authority sent the developers of a proposed home for the elderly on outside development zone land in Naxxar back to the drawing board, noting that replacing a one-storey farm by a three-storey building with 47 rooms was too large for the area.
The Environmental and Resource Authority described the development as “unacceptable from an environmental point of view” and that it can easily be accommodated in the urban area. The PA board asked for the overall height and massing of the proposal to be reduced.
Another application for houses to be built in outside development zone in Xagħra, Gozo has seen the objection by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, the Environment and Resources Authority and Environmental NGO Għawdix.
Permission for buildings outside the development zone are only permitted for limited extensions to existing dwellings, unlike this application, leading one to ask what does outside development zone really means?
