Once again, the Planning Authority has approved the demolition of a historic building. This time the property is a 300-year-old house in Birkirkara along Triq l-Imrieħel. Contrary to the norm, this application did not start out as a request for demolition – when first submitted in March 2016, the request was simply to restore the property.
The PA case officer even asked for a restoration method statement to ensure that the proposed works would result in the high-quality restoration of this building.
So what happened?
Apparently, there was one problem – the building’s location. Triq l-Imrieħel narrows significantly at the point where the building is positioned. To resolve this, the Local Plans of 2006 proposed that the front of the building be demolished and the road widened.
When the PA case officer raised this issue, the applicant’s architect responded by stating that the building had been there long before any alignments existed and therefore the age of the building should be prioritised.
The case officer decided that if the Heritage Planning Unit (HPU) agreed that the building was of value, then the local plan should be amended to protect it. The HPU was consulted and confirmed that the building was indeed of value attributing to our vernacular heritage.
With this, the case officer concluded that “although located outside the official alignment, the proposal is still being favourably considered due to the age and architectural value of the existing building”.
The street has been stripped of its Urban Conservation Area status to appease a well-connected architect-developer
Of course, the story did not end there.
It seems that when the case was handed over to the Planning Commission for a final decision, the commission had a different view and following a site inspection deemed the building’s location too dangerous and considered its demolition as suggested in the 2006 Local Plan to be the only solution.
Now labelled a safety hazard, the 300-year-old building’s vernacular value was completely ignored and the bulldozer touted as the only logical way forward. The application was changed into a request for demolition and subsequent redevelopment into an apartment block.
The Planning Commission approved the new proposal and the building was condemned to an untimely end.
Was the demolition of this building seriously the only possible way to improve this street’s safety? And how much will we really gain?
The truth is that unless the adjacent buildings are also demolished (as envisioned in the local plans), the road will widen by barely one metre, and this building will have basically been demolished in vain.
Why wasn’t the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage consulted? One document relating to the case states that due to the building’s age, it should have been consulted. However, according to documents available to the public, no consultation took place. How could the Planning Commission take this decision without consulting the experts?
They may be architects, but this does not make them experts on cultural heritage.
The Planning Commission has again deemed the wrecking ball the only way to ‘solve’ Malta’s poorly developed urban fabric. As if more apartments are what this island needs when over 900 new units are being approved every month.
The next one to go could be Sliema’s ‘Green House’ in St Mary Street, which has stood there for centuries.
The street has been stripped of its Urban Conservation Area status to appease a well-connected architect-developer, leaving some of the oldest houses in Sliema unprotected.
Will the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage intervene in time?
How much more of our heritage will be demolished and redeveloped into masses of concrete huts before the Planning Authority and our politicians realise that they’re killing all that makes Malta special?
Tara Cassar is an architect and environmental campaigner with Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar.