Appeals against the controversial Townsquare and Mrieħel high-rises kicked off in earnest today, with questions over conflicting photomontages drawn up by developers and NGOs.

Separate appeals against the 38-storey Townsquare tower in Tigné, approved by the PA last August, have been filed by environment NGOs, the Sliema local council, and the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA).

Environmental organisations have also appealed against the four interlinked high-rises in Mrieħel approved by the PA on the same day.

In a hearing before the Planning Tribunal earlier today, photographer Daniel Cilia, appearing as a witness for the eNGOs, explained that photomontages taken by the developers had used a wide-angle lens, diminishing the size of the towers from various viewpoints around Malta.

A photomontage of the development in Mrieħel produced by the developers.

“Mathematics is not an opinion,” he said. “If you are using a wide angle lens, distances are doubled compared to what you’d see with your eyes. These photomontages were deceptively designed to make the building appear much smaller than it is.”

Questions over the reliability of the developers’ photomontages had already been raised by ERA chairman Viktor Axiak in the run-up to the PA hearing last summer.

Mr Cilia argued that the PA regulations on photomontages contained a number of loopholes which “any competent photographer” could easily exploit to create deceptive images.

At the request of the developers’ lawyers, he also explained the process that had been involved in drawing up alternate photomontages which have been used in a recent campaign by NGOs, and which show a significantly greater visual impact.

He said the 3D model of the towers was prepared by a team of Din L-Art Ħelwa architects in modelling software Sketchup, based on official floor-by-floor plans, before being exported into Google Earth.