Tall building projects were being “rushed” through the bureaucratic process before a comprehensive plan was developed, objectors complained yesterday.
“Even though there are serious concerns being raised by the council, NGOs and civil society, and no clear policy has been drafted, tall buildings are seemingly being rushed through the planning process. We weren’t expecting the process to move this quickly,” Sliema local councillor Michael Briguglio told the Times of Malta.
He was contacted for his reaction to the planning directorate’s recommendation for a 38-storey tower in Tigné, Sliema to be given the green light.
Proposed by the Gasan Group, the Town Square project is one of several tall buildings being proposed for the Sliema area. Its fate will be decided on June 23 at a planning hearing at the Mediterranean Conference Centre.
The recommendation for approval, published yesterday, was set against a planning gain, a form of environmental contribution, of €266,314 which the report said was to fund traffic management systems and urban projects.
The tower includes 159 apartments, offices, a shopping complex and 748 parking spaces as well as the restoration of the nearby Villa Drago.
Dr Briguglio has long voiced concern over the construction of a cluster of tall buildings in the Sliema area, insisting a holistic management plan was needed before these could be erected. He said yesterday that a petition for the cessation of these projects until such a plan was developed had been signed by hundreds of residents and given to the authority.
The area would be impacted more with traditional blocks
Residents and a collective of NGOs have written on the matter to government MP Franco Mercieca, in his capacity as chairman of Parliament’s Environment and Development Planning Committee. Despite this, the government was steaming ahead, he said.
“If this is how the government deals with public outcry, then it’s quite worrying,” Dr Briguglio said.
The case officer’s report recommending approval has acknowledged that the project would disturb the Sliema skyline but said the authority’s new policy on tall buildings, approved in 2014, had designated the Tigné area as “a cluster of tall buildings.”
“The visual assessment should be considered in relation to the prospective skyline of the area as a cluster of high buildings,” the report reads.
Meanwhile, the authority’s design advisory committee said the project aspired “to achieve high-quality development in the middle of Sliema”. The case officer’s report argued that the area would be impacted more if it was developed according to the traditional style of apartment blocks than using the floor area ratio of narrow and taller buildings.
This, it added, would only be the case on the condition that more open space around the buildings was created.
Town Square will include a central plaza and underground car park, with an entrance from Hughes Hallet Street and an underground link under Qui-Si-Sana Road. According to the project’s environmental impact assessment, excavation for the subterranean access route, garages and foundations will take around 10 months, and construction of the tower some four years.
Resident Anthony Bezzina, who lives a few metres from the proposed site, said not only would the construction be a nightmare to live with, but once the project was finished, the infrastructure would not keep up. “I have lived here all my life and, believe me, the area cannot cope with traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, as it is, never mind adding some 6,000 more cars and hundreds if not thousands of residents. This is going to be crazy,” he said.