Mepa awaiting political direction on Armier

The planning authority is waiting for political direction on what to do with the illegal “boathouse” village at Armier, where large white rooms with green doors have lined the coast since before 1992, the year the authority was set up.

“There are two things that can be done in my opinion: regularise them or remove them,” the Malta Environment Planning Authority’s enforcement directorate head Alex Borg said yesterday.

Speaking during the demolition of an extension to a room built before 1967 and another to a scheduled pre-World War II pillbox, Mr Borg said the authority was not going to tolerate any more illegalities.

“There seems to be this idea that because it’s Armier anything goes but this is not going to be tolerated,” Mr Borg said, adding there was a political commitment on Armier.

Ever since a botched attempt by the government to demolish the illegal shanty town in 1991, the issue has surfaced at every election with boathouse owners reaching agreements with both government and opposition on ways to regularise their position. In 2005, Armier Developments Ltd, a company set up by the Armier boathouse community, submitted a development application to turn the village into an organised cluster of beach houses.

The government had proposed a similar plan in 2001, which was incorporated into the Marfa Action Plan. However, following a public outcry, the project was placed on the backburner until the boathouse owners filed their own plans for the construction of 1,500 boathouses, a third being allocated to people who do not own a boathouse there.

Last year Mepa said it was still waiting for the Marfa Action Plan to be approved by the Prime Minister before any decisions could be taken.

The extensions to both structures demolished yesterday were built without permission and were within scheduled sites. The persons who occupied the building were unknown to the authority. In spite of enforcement notices, no steps had been taken to rectify the situation.

The planning authority went on site yesterday, vacated the buildings and brought down the illegal structures.

A couple of cupboards and pots and pans were taken out as heavy machinery waited outside to break down the walls. The pillbox, a World War II structure, had two rubble walls built outside it and a metal structure for a canopy.

The extension to the other room contained a small room, probably used as a corridor, and a bathroom. It lay within the buffer zone of the protected military structure.

Both were destroyed without much fuss in less than an hour.