A decision on whether to grant a permit for the construction of an Arriva bus depot in Żebbuġ, part of which would fall outside the development zone, has been sent back to the Appeals Tribunal of the planning authority.
The Court of Appeal annulled the tribunal’s decision which had upheld a previous Mepa decision not to allow the project to go ahead.
Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti delivered this judgment following an appeal filed by Raymond Fenech.
The case goes back to May 12, 2011, when the planning authority board had turned down an application filed by Mr Fenech for the construction of a bus depot and bus parking, maintenance and washing facilities, including underground reservoirs.
The board said the site was Outside Development Zone (ODZ) and there was not enough justification for a bus depot to be constructed in this location.
Mr Fenech then appealed from this decision to the Appeals Tribunal on the basis that Mepa was bound, when refusing a planning application, to give specific reasons for the refusal.
These reasons were supposed to be based on existing plans, policies and other material considerations.
Mepa, Mr Fenech argued, had not given such specific reasons.
The following September the Appeals Tribunal overturned Mr Fenech’s appeal and confirmed the board’s decision. In its decision, the tribunal had given reasons why the application filed by Mr Fenech ought to be refused.
Mr Fenech then appealed to the Court of Appeal claiming that the tribunal had not decided on the point raised by him, namely that the board had to justify its refusal of his application.
The tribunal, he submitted, ought not to have decided upon the application itself particularly when it had concluded that Mepa should have ordered more consultations or further studies on the project.
In yesterday’s judgment, Mr Justice Chetcuti said the law was very clear when it stipulated that Mepa had to give specific reasons when refusing a development application.
The tribunal ought to have addressed this issue and not made good for Mepa’s omission by giving its own reasons for the permit refusal. The tribunal was bound to examine whether Mepa had scrupulously carried out its duties according to law.
The tribunal had in fact been mistaken when it found that Mepa’s refusal was explained in the decision, the court said.
The application for the bus depot ought to have been decided on the basis of two principal issues: the fact that a large part of the land was ODZ; and the policy for Areas for Open Storage which permitted ODZ development in certain circumstances.
The Board had completely ignored these two issues but the tribunal had not given a ruling on this even though requested to do so by Mr Fenech.
The court ruled that the tribunal’s decision did not satisfy the spirit or letter of the law and it should have remitted the application back to Mepa’s board for a new decision. In this manner, all the parties concerned would have been entitled to debate the issue thoroughly.
The court, therefore, annulled the tribunal’s decision and ordered that the case be sent back to it to be decided upon again.