Private road used to bypass local plan

The recently approved local plan designates the area in Swieqi overlooking the valley as a two-storey zone but that has not stopped the Malta Environment and Planning Authority from giving the go-ahead for a four-storey development to take place there.

Irked residents fear that an extension to be built at an apartment complex will create a precedent and will be cited by others wanting to develop property in a similar way in their neighbourhood.

The local plan designates the zone as a villa area, which means that even though detached maisonettes can be built instead of villas, these cannot rise more than two stories above street level.

At the back of the two-storey apartment, however, the developer built a road which is two stories higher than the level of the street in front of the complex, arguing that Mepa should allow for two stories to be built above the level of this private road.

The Mepa board originally granted only one additional storey but a recent appeal overturned that decision granting a second floor, which will make the development the only four-storey building in the area. With three storeys, the development was in line with an adjacent block given the green light a few decades ago.

Residents are now fighting the decision in order to prevent others from using this precedent to build four storeys.

"We would like to bring to your attention the construction of a building which, in our considered opinion, has not been built in accordance with the regulations guiding the area and namely that of detached/semi detached dwellings," the residents wrote in a letter to Mepa.

"It seems that the DCC deemed the fact that if instead of the side and back garden a street was built, then this allowed the construction of an extra floor, and now the Appeals' Board has decided that not only one but two floors can be constructed above this 'new' street level; deeming the 'new' street as if it were a public street," the letter continued.

"Approving such a proposal... creates a dangerous and unwarranted precedent benefiting purely speculative... and not planning merits," the letter, signed by the residents' lawyer Franco Vassallo, said.

The authority's audit officer recently wrote back saying there was little he could do given that the go-ahead had been granted by the appeals board.

As for any future developments, he said that his office can only investigate a case after a decision has been taken.