WWII shelter risks demolition

The fate of a wartime shelter in Hamrun is in the balance after the Development Control Commission gave the green light to a project that has been consistently refused by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority for three years.

A Hamrun couple, who is fighting to protect this piece of wartime heritage, is flabbergasted and shocked at how an application to excavate a basement, refused twice and dismissed once, was suddenly approved by the DCC in May.

The DCC had been awaiting the developer to pay a bank guarantee of Lm1,600 before issuing the permit and this was paid on Friday, according to a Mepa spokesman.

The conditions of the permit are now in the process of being drafted and the permit should be issued in a few weeks' time, the spokesman said when contacted.

The couple, Doreen Galea Vincenti Zarb and her husband Sergio, said yesterday they intend to appeal this decision before the Planning Appeal Board.

Dr Galea Vincenti Zarb said that the whole story started on October 18, 2002 when an application (PA/05495/02) for the addition of a basement and alterations to the drainage system was submitted for the property located at 268/269 St Joseph High Street, Hamrun.

The couple, who live next door, immediately registered their objection with Mepa arguing, among other things, that the area was honeycombed with both public and private World War II air-raid shelters.

The couple also had in hand original plans of these shelters, which had been drawn up during the war by Lawrence Zarb, then a senior draftsman at the Works Department.

They were also concerned that the proposed development would threaten the underground water reservoirs, which form part of the Wignacourt Aqueduct.

The objections were among the issues taken into consideration by Mepa, which refused the application on October 29, 2002.

That notwithstanding, excavations started all the same, exposing the wartime shelter that had been sealed for years. Mepa immediately slapped an enforcement notice (EN54/2003) which was unsuccessfully appealed by the developer.

However, all this changed when the DCC overturned the original ruling because, among other things, the existing features of the wartime shelter were being included in the proposed basement.

"We consider that this new decision of the DCC basically sanctions the unauthorised excavation carried out by the developer two years ago and makes a mockery of the enforcement notice that was issued," the couple said in a letter they wrote to the DCC and copied to Heritage Malta, among others.

The couple is also upset that this decision creates a precedent and could lead to other applications being submitted by similarly-minded commercial enterprises for the excavation of basements.

"In doing so the labyrinth of wartime shelters will be destroyed," Dr Galea Vincenti Zarb said.

Wartime shelters are protected by law, a fact that was further confirmed by a parliamentary question made by Nationalist MP Franco Galea in June.

Mr Galea had asked Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech what the government's policy on wartime shelters found under private properties was, especially in urban conservation zones.

The reply was that World War II shelters were historic monuments and protected under the Cultural Heritage Act of 2002. These had to be protected from any damage, even in cases of development of public and private land.

It was also pointed out that since the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage was established in 2003 there had been nine interventions to ensure wartime shelters were protected.

"In the light of all this we will be appealing the DCC's decision through the means accorded to us by law," the couple said.