Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1219206
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 MARCH 2020 NEWS The Planning Authority has published two public domain consultation documents. The documents identify two sites, one known as l-Għadira s-Safra, limits of Naxxar, and the other forming part of a larger area known as tal-Għeriexem and il-Marġ, limits of Rabat (Malta), which are being recommended by the Planning Authority to be declared as 'Public Domain'. L-Għadira s-Safra is a unique transitional coastal wetland situated between Qalet Marku and Għallis, limits of Naxxar. The site was scheduled as a Level 1 Area of Ecological Importance, a Level 1 Site of Scientific Importance in 1995, and later designated as a Natura 2000 site in view of the rare protected flora and fauna supported by this habitat. The area included within the larger proposed site at tal-Għeriexem and il-Marġ, which is being recommended for consideration as public domain, incorporates the Domus Romana and the Saracen Cemetery, located just outside Mdina. In addition to its archaeological value, the site forms part of the Mdina Area of High Landscape Value. These two locations have been shortlisted from the sites proposed between 2017 and 2019 following a review in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Code (Cap 16). The public and all stakeholders are being invited to view the Public Domain consultation documents from the Authority's website; www.pa.org.mt/consultation Submissions and comments may be sent directly to the Authority through email address: publicdomain@pa.org.mt Proposals for new sites will not be considered through this public consultation exercise. The closing date for submissions is Monday 30th March 2020. www.pa.org.mt PLANNING AUTHORITY HAVE YOUR SAY OPEN PUBLIC CONSULTATION Proposed Public Domain Sites No amount of compensation could fix things for those who lost their homes, or in the latest case, also their wife and moth- er, she said. "Your conscience cannot be cleaned... blood is on your hands." Brincat thanked the Housing Authority and the community, who she said had been the only ones to provide her family with help after they lost their home. Paul Vella, whose mother lost her life 20 years ago due to an- other building collapse, said that the recent laws reform has not provided any result. "The laws are not there to pro- tect us, but to safeguard those who have money – contractors, speculators, architects…" he said. Caroline Micallef, whose Gwardamanga Hill apartment block collapsed in April 2019, said careless developers had al- most killed them. "Sandro Chetcuti said it was an unfortunate accident. Will you say it was an unfortunate accident if they bring down your own home?" she asked. "We are alive by a miracle, because we managed to leave with a few minutes to spare," she said, lamenting that no in- quiry had taken place to find the cause of the collapse. Micallef said she had been through a trauma, and that there should be a system in place to protect people who suffer such losses of their home due to de- velopment. "The laws protect the contractors and developers, not the common man," she said. 'How do Sandro Chetcuti and Robert Musumeci manage to sleep at night?' Graffitti activist Wayne Flask also gave a passionate speech, taking to task Chetcuti and Mu- sumeci. Musumeci, Flask said, had written the legal notice reform- ing construction laws which "wasn't even good to use [as toi- let paper]." "How does Chetcuti, the virgin who doesn't want construction cowboys, sleep at night?" he asked. The time now was not for con- tinuity, Flask said, but for seri- ous and decent reforms by those who had the country, not their pockets, at heart. Moviment Graffitti said the construction lobby was contin- uously interfering in reforms in the sector and insisted that its profits, not decency, were the most important value. The NGO said that the lack of enforcement in the sector, in- adequate laws, a complete lais- sez-faire attitude in planning, lack of safety in construction sites, and the "arrogant bullying attitude of the development lob- by" was the result of years and years of donations and pressure on the world of politics. "This latest fatality is the di- rect result of this situation. To- gether with this, the legal notice drafted by Robert Musumeci after a spate of similar incidents last summer is the product of incompetence and servility to- wards the construction lob- by. As we have repeated many times, accidents like this were going to continue because this 'reform' did not tackle, in any manner, the structural prob- lems within the system," Graf- fitti said. mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt "How does Chetcuti, the virgin who doesn't want construction cowboys, sleep at night?" JAMES DEBONO A six-storey hotel is being proposed in Triq Marjanu Vella, a residential part of Sliema in the vicinity of Balluta, presently characterised by two-storey townhouses. Plans show that the development will result in a pencil-like development, jarring with the sur- roundings. The proposed development of the 20-room hotel foresees the retention of the existing façade, the excavation of a small garden which presently includes a lemon tree and a loquat tree, and the development of four new floors, including a penthouse level. The local plan sets a height limitation of three floors in this area but a policy approved in 2014 permits hotels to develop two extra floors over and above local plan limitations. This part of Sliema was not included in the locality's urban conservation area in the local plan. The new hotel is being proposed by Gordon Gerada's Gerada Quality Construction Ltd. Over the past months the Planning Authority has been confronted by an increasing amount of applications for hotels located outside existing tourist areas, spilling into residential areas. One such proposal is being made in the one- time quiet environs around Casa Leone and the Sacred Heart Convent in St Julian's which are facing the prospect of a 49-room hotel con- structed on eight levels, right across the school and convent instead of a two-storey, 19th cen- tury house. Six-storey hotel proposed in Sliema two- storey area PHOTOS BY JAMES BIANCHI