Balluta Bay is one of the prettiest seaside corners around Sliema. The old square near the valley is always popular. People chat on benches under the trees and Art Nouveau apartments set an elegant backdrop above the restaurant umbrellas. Several historic buildings have miraculously survived around this bay, with some old summer villas on one side and a neat row of small houses with parapets on the other.
The large Carmelite church and convent dominate the scene, with their gardens extending to the roads behind. “A garden should be a garden,” said Archbishop Charles Scicluna when asked about plans for this property, and he is absolutely right.
Nowhere is safe from bulldozers in Malta. A disastrous chain of events was unleashed in 2011, when the Carmelites got entangled in a dubious lease agreement on part of this garden. In 2015 the lessee (the brother of the former Prior, apparently) applied to build a supermarket, offices and a carpark there. This created an uproar.
The Archbishop headed straight to court to block the project. The land was left to the Church for the sole purpose of a convent. The Carmelites also went to court insisting that the private lease agreement is invalid. Hundreds of people signed a petition to stop this madness.
I know Balluta well and live just up the road from this garden. It has protected trees and is in a conservation area. It lies behind an old, high wall along Tower Road, with a statue of Our Lady overlooking the promenade below. It is one of the last green spaces left in this crowded town. But the applicants want to replace it with nondescript shops, offices and an underground carpark, instead offering a roof garden with the statue placed on top!
The proposed carpark leads directly onto Tower Road, possibly the busiest street in Sliema. Transport Malta has said that cars attempting to exit the carpark must be controlled by a system of signals, being so close to existing traffic lights. The proposed supermarket was scrapped and changed to shops due to traffic concerns.
A bus stop and a petrol station are just opposite. And lately a restaurant has inserted a wooden platform with chairs and tables in some parking spaces of this busy street. Unbelievably, the carpark exit would be close to this platform. It looks like an accident waiting to happen.
The report describes the garden as a ‘vacant’ site. This just sums up the mentality of planners and the construction industry in Malta
There are plenty of sound reasons why the garden wall should not be demolished to make way for a building. The plan is not in line with local plan policies and the lease agreement is in court. More parking spaces will only attract more traffic, as Mepa had argued forcefully when refusing carparks at Mater Dei and at the university.
Nonetheless, the Planning Authority’s case officer has recommended that the permit should be granted. Our planners wear blinkers on Sliema. They ignore its thousands of residents and conveniently treat it as a tourism spot, which pleases developers. But tourists prefer places with character and history. They are not impressed by a deluge of meaningless shops and offices.
For the full planning picture, we should not overlook the personal involvement in this project of the secretary general of the Malta Developers Association, Michael Stivala. He attended the sitting and is actively following proceedings. He has every right to do so, of course. But it does raise questions about the MDA’s professed commitment to sustainable development. Urban green spaces are not just empty sites waiting to be dug up, obliterated by concrete and replaced with roof gardens.
■ In an interview the MDA president, Sandro Chetcuti, had said that developers today are “not only seeking profits but they also have a new pride in their work and a passion for doing the right thing”.
Was that fake news or what? Can ‘doing the right thing’ mean wrangling over a convent garden (amid legal protests from no less than the Archbishop) and ignoring a petition by residents, in order to intensify the over-development and traffic congestion of Sliema?
The Carmelites are against the project on their land and the lease validity is contested. The ongoing court cases prove this. The case officer’s report includes legal advice that if owners do not consent, then applications should not be processed further. So why is this being pressed forward?
To her credit, the planning committee chairman Elizabeth Ellul deferred the case, requesting legal information. The committee was also unconvinced by the report’s suggestion of departing from the local plan to accommodate this project. Let’s see what happens between now and the next meeting. Apologies if I sound sceptical, but I have been watching the planning game for years.
To justify the project, the report even states that the proposed building will create a ‘transition’ between the convent and the apartments on the other side of the garden. Why, isn’t a garden wall an acceptable ‘transition’ between two buildings anymore?
The report then describes the garden as a ‘vacant’ site. This just sums up the mentality of planners and the construction industry in Malta. No, an old convent garden is not a vacant site. It is a garden.
petracdingli@gmail.com