Rabat residents protest against seminary extension project

The Tal-Virtu Seminary extension project, which will see the school population boom by 230 per cent, has prompted serious objections from Rabat residents.

Their complaints are being reviewed by Malta Environment and Planning Authority auditor Joe Falzon, who agreed with the residents that “there are definitely problems” in the planning authority’s assessment of the project which led to the permit.

In a petition, the group of 217 residents said they had identified gross shortcomings in the planning directorate’s assessment report (DPA) which they said made a “mockery” of the residential priority area of Tal-Virtu and bypassed Mepa’s governing and controlling policies.

They called on the planning authority to review its decision. The Tal-Virtu area, they pointed out, was covered by Mepa’s North West Local Plan, which recommends no further development within the grounds unless “necessary and essential”.

On this point, in fact, the Mepa auditor told The Times he found no document justifying the need to build the primary school in the Seminary grounds and pointed out that other sites could have been looked into for an extension.

The residents also objected to the fact that the directorate had decided not to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment when the Local Plan considers the area to be a sensitive one.

The lack of a traffic impact assessment was also something of “gross concern” to the residents who already spend some 25 minutes exiting Rabat at rush hour.

The petition argues that the development will have a negative physical effect on the whole neighbourhood and lead to a general decline in the value of property in the area.

The expansion of the school follows similar moves by other Church schools in the wake of the education reform, which does away with secondary school entrance exams and promotes continuity between primary and secondary schools.

In the case of the seminary, this will mean an increase of 500 students, with a 430 per cent increase in floor area, the residents claim. A two-storey building will rise to nearly five storeys and the external traffic will “substantially increase”.

They have therefore called on the Mepa auditor to investi-gate whether this development respects the Local Plan.

School headmaster David Cilia maintained the school was “law abiding” and that the residents could have objected earlier, when Mepa was still deciding on the permit.

He insisted that their objections were not right, as there were new education policies which required the extension.

“The cheek of it is all is that the Tal-Virtu area is built on land which is rented to residents by the Church for some €70 per year, but now they don’t want the church to build on its own property,” he said.

He pointed out that the distance between the school and the nearest property was half a kilometre.

But Kenneth Zammit Endrich, a resident who is also an architect, said just because the application had gone through and no protest was submitted, it did not mean the process had been correct.

“I would like to think that I don’t need to protest against an application to make sure it has been done well,” he said.

“Supposedly Mepa policies themselves guaranteed the concerns of the citizens are well protected.”