A permit allowing an agricultural store in Burmarrad to be converted into a residence has been revoked after it emerged that the applicant presented misleading information which influenced the granting of the permit.
The applicant, Louis Attard, was granted a permit earlier this year to convert the existing store, restroom and reservoir into a dwelling.
The conditions of the permit required him to enter into a public deed tying the ownership and occupation of the dwelling to that of a full-time farmer.
Mr Attard, however, could not enter into such a deed, as he was not the owner of the land, and sought to move the application to another individual, William Spiteri.
Mr Spiteri submitted evidence, including employment forms, showing that he worked as a full-time farmer, but investigations later revealed that he had not registered any land with the Agriculture and Rural Payments Agency.
Moreover, neither he nor Mr Attard had ever taken any agricultural produce to the fruit andvegetable market centre in Ta’ Qali (Il-Pitkali).
This called into question why the farmer needed to have an existing store converted into a residential dwelling. Furthermore, the applicant also submitted a false declaration of ownership, which was a material consideration in the original decision.
Rural areas were being bombarded with development applications for agriculture stores and farms to be turned into residential units
During a public meeting yesterday, the board also noted that a structure of a considerable size, including parquet flooring and other residential amenities, had been constructed prior to the Planning Commission’s decision.
Questions were also raised over the land Mr Attard claimed to work, a key factor in the granting of the permit.
The Agricultural Advisory Committee had recommended approval because Mr Attard had 91 tumoli of land registered in his name but the board heard that the land had all been registered in one day in November, before the permit was granted.
Once the permit was issued, at least 20 tumoli were taken off his name.
Mr Attard’s lawyer argued that the forms establishing Mr Spiteri as a farmer were submitted after the decision to grant the permit and therefore could not have been a basis for the decision.
He also claimed that land registration regularly shifted among different farmers as most did not actually own the fields they operated.
Changes to the rural policy in July 2015 led to a string of developments outside development zones. This newspaper reported last January how rural areas were being bombarded with development applications for agriculture stores and farms to be turned into residential units.