Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1368118
8 NEWS TOWNSCAPES maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 MAY 2021 Gzira gardens will get restaurant in Transport Malta plan JAMES DEBONO PLANS for the Gżira 'Council of Europe' gardens submitted by Transport Malta have now added a restaurant to the "op- erator area" for the yacht marina. The 493sq.m patch will include an office and storage space, a restaurant, a retail shop and public toilet facilities in the area next to the Enemalta sub- station. A public roof garden was also proposed on top of the proposed com- mercial development. 13 trees, including two pine trees impacted by the development, will be "transplanted" to other parts of the gar- den. A 25-year concession was awarded by public tender to the Gzira Gardens Marina Consortium in 2018, a project which had attracted 14 bids. But the application for an additional two pon- toons presented in 2019 and and that of an "operator area" have both been pre- sented by Transport Malta, and not by the concessionaires. A general masterplan is mooted in the project statement for the two new pon- toons, which refers to "a holistic rede- sign" of the area, the current access-on- ly road and the public garden. According to a project development statement for the two new pontoons, the project will take place in four phas- es, the first being the construction of a pontoon approved back in 2011; the second for the two new pontoons; the third will be the "formalisation and ra- tionalisation of on-street car parking", aimed at minimising the footprint tak- en up by parked cars so that the entire stretch of road is turned into a "a pedes- trian-priority, low-speed area"Ġ with a paved finish continuous to the pedes- trian and bicycle-friendly promenade, connecting the Gzira promenade to Ta' Xbiex. Phase 4 will consist in the upgrading of Gnien il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa "to en- sure the relevance of the public space by providing an access-for-all, safe, green park, maximising the vegetation and re- designing the park around the existing mature trees." THE construction magnate Charles Polidano 'iċ-Ċaqnu' is asking the Plan- ning Authority to sanction his devia- tions from original permits, for a series of developments carried out on his Ħal-Farruġ compound over the past decade. They include a workers' quarters for foreign employees at his concrete, steelworks and gas filling compound. According to a Green Transport Plan submitted to the PA back in 2015, 64 employees are housed in these quarters. A PA case officer's report is recom- mending allowing the 19m-high head office block, and an adjacent workers' quarters, as well as a larger-than-ap- proved fuel station and car wash. An- other deviation was an extention to the brick production and gas plants. A decision on whether to regular- ise the plant will be taken by the PA board on 13 May. The report justifies the inclusion of a workers' quarter because of Pol- idano's tendering for projects that require the periodic engagement of "large specialised foreign teams" working on shift basis between the plant and the respective construction sites, which necessitate "in-house temporary workers accommodation". The case officer is recommending a condition forbidding permanent residential occupation in the area al- located for a workers' quarter, which should be operated "as one unit un- der one management". Although the workers' quarters involved the creation of additional levels not foreseen in original plans, which are being sanctioned, the over- all height of the residential block will still be lower than the 20m-high head office. The office bloack is nearly double the 10.5m limit for developments in- side so-called areas of containment, designation for industrial sites that are located outside development zones. The PA's case officer concluded that the height is acceptable because of the nearby 40m-high Lufthansa hangar. Polidano asks PA to sanction 'deviations' from Hal-Farrug permits