Crucial decision for Stella Maris Street

The application to demolish houses 26/26A in Stella Maris Street, Sliema, and instead construct basement garages, ground, first, second floor apartments and penthouse is again on the agenda of a DCC meeting being held this week.

Should the DCC sanction this application, they will be blatantly infringing the 2006 NHLP building height limitation approved for Sliema's Urban Conservation Area and in the process ruining the streetscape of Stella Maris Street. I know for a fact that should this be the case, four residents in the said street will be submitting an application to develop their properties.

I had made an appeal to the Prime Minister as the minister responsible for Mepa and to Minister George Pullicino, who before the 2008 general election had posted to each and every household in Sliema a four-page document about "Development in Sliema" in which he had specifically quoted as an example the height reduction from four to two floors of Stella Maris Street. But as my various pleas have gone unheeded, I call upon Austin Walker, chairman of Mepa, to intervene and ensure that this application is rejected.

The little that is left of Sliema's past should be preserved and not destroyed.