Updated 9.15pm 

A proposal to build four-storey apartment blocks in Qawra's coastal bungalow zone was unanimously rejected by the Planning Authority's executive council this evening. 

Some 280 Qawra residents had filed objections to plans which sought to change height restrictions on a site measuring 8,000 square-metres on the seafront, increasing the area's maximum built up coverage of the low-density site to 50 per cent.

READ: Qawra residents flight plans to build apartment blocks

The area on the Qawra seafront, just past the Dolmen Hotel, is made up of 11 detached one-storey bungalows.

Residents argue the proposal is an exercise in bad planning that would negatively affect the area’s visual integrity and their quality of life

Nine out of the 11 bungalow owners on the site supported the change.

Objecting residents insisted that the site in question is part of a much larger area that once belonged to a single owner, who included restrictive conditions in each contract of transfer to preserve the site as developed in line with a holistic master plan.

The PA was expected to decide on the re-zoning application last March but the residents filed a request for an injunction through their lawyer Ian Stafrace.

However, last April the court ruled that the hearing could go ahead and the residents should raise their grievances in front of the PA.

Residents argued the proposal was an exercise in bad planning that would negatively affect the area’s visual integrity and their quality of life.

According to the application, submitted by Ammorin Ltd, the changes proposed were in line with local plan policy NWSP11, which states that developments over the years in the existing blocks and their surroundings have already “seriously compromised” the area’s original character.

But residents insisted the statement was misleading and that any developments that took place respected the original height and site coverage restrictions.

They argued the proposals also went against the stated aims of the local plan policy: enhancing the urban environment, protecting the amenity of existing residents and “improving the public realm”.

“If the change in scheme is approved... it would block the existing panoramic and sea views, greatly reducing the market value of the [existing] residential units,” the residents wrote in their objection to the Planning Authority.

PA council members unconvinced

During a stormy public hearing which around 50 of the objecting residents took part in, PA executive council members acknowledged the developer's local plan arguments but were not fully swayed by arguments that their proposal was fully in line.

PA board chairman Vince Cassar described the local plan policy as “one of many mistakes made in 2006” and said legislators’ had clearly intended to provide for a comprehensive development of the site. With two of the bungalow owners not supporting the plans, he said, this could not be guaranteed.

Similarly, CEO Johann Buttigieg said that while he was bound to respect Parliament’s decision, he was personally “totally against” the plans.

He said his decision to vote against was due to doubts over whether the two non-consenting plots could be built, due to pre-existing agreements between owners not to increase the height of their buildings.

Other council members raised further legal impediments, including the fact that, according to the local plan, the area’s height limitation could only be changed by a master plan, rather than a zoning application.

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