Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1339768
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 FEBRUARY 2021 NEWS Dingli road Owner wants bigger room for expropriation JAMES DEBONO THE proposed demolition and relocation of two rural struc- tures, expropriated by Infra- structure Malta to make way for a controversial new road cutting across old carob trees in Dingli, could increase pres- sure on new buildings along the new road, the Environment and Resources Authority has warned. The old rural structures are in the immediate vicinity of a me- dieval chapel recently granted protection. But the owner of the two struc- tures – 8.6sqm and 9.5sq.m in dimensions – wants to replace them with one 20sq.m room on the opposite side of a new road it will be build to link the al- leys Daħla tas-Sienja and Sqaq il-MUSEUM. ERA is now arguing that the relocation of the room along the outer side of the new road will introduce "likely pres- sures" and set a "precedent" for future development of plots on the ODZ side of the road. Even the proposed replace- ment of the existing rooms is not "even a like-with-like re- placement", the ERA said, but one resulting in a new ODZ (outside development zones) building which is actually larg- er than the minor structures displaced by the road. ERA even said one of the existing 'rooms' is being pro- posed for demolition unneces- sarily, "displacing its footprint onto ODZ land, only to be replaced by a redundant land parcel within the development zone, at the street corner." In 2018, the same owner of the two rooms expropriated by Infrastructure Malta was granted a permit for a terraced house, outside development zones, located 40m away from the chapel. A similar applica- tion had been previously re- jected in 2011. The Environment and Plan- ning Review Tribunal approved the permit on the basis of a pol- icy, which allows development at the edge of the development zone. The rural rooms set to be dis- placed complement the near- by medieval church of Santa Duminka, which was proposed for scheduling just months be- fore the 2013 election, in No- vember 2012. But no action was taken for the past eight years to protect the chapel, with the scheduling placed on the backburner, and facilitat- ing plans for a schemed road to link the two alleyways. It was only after Graffitti ac- tivists took direct action to stop works on the new road that the PA and the Superin- tendence for Cultural Heritage moved to schedule the chapel after an eight-year delay. The chapel was protected at Grade 1 level, following a submission by the Superintendence of Cul- tural Heritage to the PA's exec- utive council. The IM roadworks them- selves, announced in the gov- ernment gazette on 7 Septem- ber, do not require a permit. But it remains unclear how the newly scheduled chapel and its context – with 300-year-old carob trees now earmarked for destruction – will be protected. When buildings are granted Grade 1 protection, the author- ities are also bound to respect their context. Moviment Graffitti is cur- rently appealing a nature per- mit issued by ERA for clearing the carob trees to make way for the new road. ERA warns that the relocation of the rooms could trigger further pressures for development of new plots on controversial linkage of two Dingli alleyways Residents are up in arms about the creation of a new road linking two cul-de-sacs that but on agricultural fields and are outside development zones. The owner of two small rooms wants to demolish to build a new, relocated room on the other end of the controversial linkage The medieval chapel abuts on the rural structures, and despite its protected status, IM wants to build a road connecting two cul de sacs