The planning authority will tomorrow assess an application by Mark Gaffarena to sanction illegalities at a Naxxar home which include two bedrooms built over a public lane and abutting on another property.

The building includes a residential unit built before 1992, which was extended in a way that clashes with the original structure and occupies an Urban Conversation Area.

The hearing features among an unusually long list of permit applications due for hearing, some of them controversial, just days before Christmas.

The case officer report states the permit application requests “the sanctioning of the roofing over a part of a public lane that was camouflaged in the submitted drawings by indicating the last part of the lane as if it were a garage when in fact it gives access to a public area and a number of garages; avoiding showing that a section passes through the illegally roofed part of the lane by describing this part as third party property, with both bedroom one and two built over a public lane”.

The case officer is recommending refusal of the permit but this is no guarantee the planning authority will follow suit.

Application to sanction illegalities

Mr Gaffarena’s name has become synonymous with developments without permits, the major case being the family’s petrol station in Luqa that was permitted to operate through a revised policy.

He is also the individual at the centre of the Old Mint Street scandal exposed by The Sunday Times of Malta that is the subject of two national investigations that are still ongoing.

In the case of the Naxxar property being heard tomorrow, an objection filed by a third party stated the rooms built over the alley obstruct natural light for the surrounding properties. The new structures were built out of concrete bricks, not limestone despite the area being a village core. 

The development is subject to an enforcement notice issued in 2008 that was never acted upon. The application for sanctioning was submitted in January last year.  

Previous applications to sanction illegalities were refused.

Attempts to contact Mr Gaffarena proved unsuccessful.