Nearly 280 Qawra residents have written to the Planning Authority to protest against a controversial proposal to allow four-storey apartment blocks in a bungalow area.

The PA was expected to decide on the application today but the residents filed a request for an injunction through their lawyer Ian Stafrace. The request was provisionally upheld, so the hearing will not go ahead. The court will make a final decision on April 10.

The 8,000-square-metre area on the Qawra seafront, just past the Dolmen Hotel, is made up of 11 detached one-storey bungalows, with a number of three-storey residential blocks with communal gardens.

A proposal recommended for approval by the PA board would change the height limitation to allow three floors and penthouses and increase the maximum coverage of the low-density site to 50 per cent.

It would block the existing panoramic and sea views

It is vehemently opposed by residents of the nearby blocks but has the support of nine out of the 11 bungalow owners.

Residents insist that the site in question is part of a much larger area that once belonged to a single owner, who included restrictive conditions in each contract of transfer to preserve the site as developed in line with a holistic master plan.

Residents argue the proposal is an exercise in bad planning that would negatively affect the area’s visual integrity and their quality of life.

According to the application, submitted by Ammorin Ltd, the changes proposed are in line with local plan policy NWSP11, which states that developments over the years in the existing blocks and their surroundings have already “seriously compromised” the area’s original character.

But residents insist the statement is misleading and that any developments that took place respected the original height and site coverage restrictions.

They argue the proposals also goes against the stated aims of the local plan policy: enhancing the urban environment, protecting the amenity of existing residents and “improving the public realm”.

“If the change in scheme is approved... it would block the existing panoramic and sea views, greatly reducing the market value of the [existing] residential units,” they wrote.

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