A development planning application for the construction of apartments (PA 5214/08) on useful agricultural land bordering the village core of Għargħur and extending down to Victoria Lines is due to be determined soon.
The proposed development will be accessible from Sqaq Kromb il-Baħar, a traditional, winding, narrow lane bordered with old and restored village houses that links the village core with the surrounding rural areas and eventually joins up with a public footpath leading to a series of terraced fields and Victoria Lines.
The proposal, for a site located at the end of the alley, will take up large areas of useful agricultural land and will necessitate the destruction of a number of rubble walls that meander along the footpaths and completely destroy the rural setting that the area enjoys today.
The development will obliterate the skyline of the village in the area, one of the highest points in Malta. The current skyline is still characterised by a series of cube-like masses interspersed with spaces of similar proportions. The construction of new buildings on the outer edge of the village core will eliminate this rural aspect of the village.
Unfortunately, it seems the discussion regarding this application will revolve around the interpretation of the schemes and this at the expense of the real issue of protecting the urban conservation area from further deterioration.
These agricultural fields, where the application was made, were clearly outside the original development schemes. The scale of the Għargħur site plan at which the original demarcation lines for the scheme was originally presented to the public was approximately 1:5,000.
There is a space of about 1mm left between the line marking the urban conservation area and the line marking the limit to development.
This 1mm space would measure 5,000 times larger on site, ending up five metres wide when scaled to actual length. The thickness of the actual 1mm line also adds a further two to three metres to the space.
This strip between the lines was clearly never intended to be developed and was never, in fact, colour coded as such, unlike other areas on the same drawing.
Believe it or not, it is on this strip that the application for development was made!
In his opinion piece in The Times on May 31, Lino Spiteri asserted that village core "preservation is more evident by its absence". Often, the real issues are lost in bureaucracy.