An emergency conservation order on the entire footprint of Villa Mekrech was issued by the planning authority in August, just two months before a permit for two-storey flats on its adjoining fields was granted.
Environmental lobby Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar produced documentation yesterday showing how it had just discovered, “after painstaking research”, that Villa Mekrech and its garden had been scheduled in its entirety in the Government Gazette of August 31.
It said the Malta Environment and Planning Authority had first scheduled the property in August but then “replaced” it with a second version in September, “reducing the protection to a much smaller portion of the garden, leaving a large part of the garden unprotected to accommodate development”.
When asked to explain, a planning authority spokeswoman said the emergency conservation order on the Għaxaq villa, “including its garden and ancillary structures”, had been issued in August after several complaints on the property were received.
The necessary studies were then carried out, “including the verification of existing permits to consider the mentioned area to be scheduled”.
One month later, in September, the villa and its garden in Santa Marija Street – not the surrounding fields – were scheduled at a Grade 2 level of protection, the spokeswoman said.
Her comments contrast claims by FAA that Mepa had first scheduled the property in August.
The villa came under the media spotlight after the planning authority recently granted a full development permit for three blocks of two-storey flats in part of the fields surrounding Villa Mekrech. The villa and its formal gardens were listed on FAA’s insistence, but the scheduling left out the area covered by an outline permit dating from 2008.
In a statement, FAA said that although the authority’s heritage protection unit described the garden as unique, it was “only given Grade 2 protection” and a large section was left without full protection, which eventually led to the granting of a permit.
At no point during the planning hearing did the planning officials “mention the earlier scheduling or the reason for them to change the footprint of the protected site”, it said.
FAA said the “public is saying the planning authority is obsolete and that development permits are issued irrespective of laws and regulations being violated and irrespective of the social and economic interests of our country”.
It said that it could only conclude that the Mepa reform “served for nothing and that, time after time, it is witnessing sham hearings at a sham authority”.
However, Mepa’s spokeswoman said that the site covered by the permit was “beyond the garden of the villa and is designated as a buffer zone where any development is limited to 25 metres from the street with a limited height restriction of two floors”.
The buffer zone “will serve as a transition between the development zone and the urban conservation area”.