Pembroke's character and tranquillity is under attack from a barrage of planning applications for five to six storey developments, Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar has warned.

The environmental NGO has joined forces with a group of over 200 Pembroke residents to urge the Planning Authority to refuse the spate of applications, made possible by a change in planning policies introduced in 2015.

Policy changes made it possible to increase all buildings by at least one additional floor over and above the building height limitations set in 2006, that in the case of Pembroke were already set at three to four floors.

Due to this policy amendment in 2015, Pembroke’s allowed building height soared to five or six storeys – a stark contrast with the existing rows of two-storey terraced houses dotted by historic military barracks that gave Pembroke its distinct character.

FAA said Planning Authority CEO Johann Buttigieg had blatantly denied the implications of the 2015 policy amendment, stating that the number of permissible floors had not increased, despite the Planning Authority itself having already approved hundreds of applications at this new increased building height.

Through these policies, the FAA said, the Planning Authority was encouraging the demolition of terraced houses and their replacement with five or six-storey apartment blocks without any consideration for the residents who invested in Pembroke specifically because it was a quiet low-density residential area with open green spaces and wide well-lit streets, characteristics that were quickly disappearing in Malta as the island became engulfed by over-development, rampant congestion and increasing levels of air and noise pollution.

“It’s as if the Planning Authority has set out to make all of Malta’s streets equally chaotic and depressive. Instead of writing policies that support the regeneration of degraded areas the Planning Authority is introducing loopholes that encourage the ruin of the few remaining well-planned characteristic towns that we have,” FAA’s Tara Cassar said.

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