The Residents’ Association of Sta Marija Estate warned today that an application for the building of 13 residential units on seven plots at the bottom of Sta Marija Estate valley was harmful for the environment and should be rejected.

The application is due to be considered by Mepa tomorrow.

“These units are projected in an area of important ecological sensitivity which Mepa has chosen to ignore,” the association said.

“Wied Għajn Żejtuna, a lush natural valley that still features a natural spring has been targeted for unsustainable development. Despite the recent scheduling of this valley, Mepa is favourably considering an obscene application for the construction of 13 residences on 7 plots. This valley has always been designated as an area where only one bungalow on each one-tumolo plot would be contemplated.

"The past two years, however, has seen an alarming number of cases where Mepa has reverted to a relaxation of this policy to allow multiple residences on single plots thus increasing the residential density of this estate and undermining – indeed violating - its own mission statement,” the association said.

It said it had been campaigning against this development for the past three years.

“Regrettably, to the residents’ chagrin and to Mepa’s unmitigated shame, the Wied Ghajn Zejtuna residential area or Santa Marija Estate, as it is most commonly known, has been allowed to become the site not of a sylvan paradise but of a concrete jungle,” the association charged.