Mepa postpones boathouses decision

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority yesterday unanimously approved an outline development permit for the redevelopment of an existing fully licensed commercial complex at Ghajn Qamar Street, in Xaghra.

The project consists of the demolition of an existing tourist and entertainment complex, the construction of 23 self-catering villa-style residential units with ancillary parking spaces and the restoration of a farm and its conversion into an administration centre for the complex.

The site is on a blue clay slope immediately below the Xaghra coralline plateau overlooking Ramla Bay on the north coast of Gozo. The application site covers some 40,000 square metres.

The authority yesterday postponed a decision over whether to sanction nine boathouses at tax-Xtut Street, in St Paul's Bay. The Planning Directorate has proposed a refusal arguing that the boathouses were illegally constructed on government land in the 1970s and their owners were not full or part-time registered fishermen.

It also pointed out that the structures were neither boathouses nor garages but air-conditioned beach rooms.

Architect Valeriano Schembri and lawyer Martin Fenech, who represented the tenants, said that although the Structure Plan did not mark the area for boathouses, there were several surrounding boathouses which had been sanctioned.

The Mepa board accepted their proposal to postpone the decision until a study is held for the local plan to determine the best use of the site in view of the existing activity in the area, without prejudice to an eventual decision.

They also requested that the study be carried out in the shortest time possible.