Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1394633
NEWS TOWNSCAPES 8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 21 JULY 2021 10 ODZ villas proposed in Kalkara JAMES DEBONO A complex of 10 dwellings with extensive paved area is being proposed on 19,000sq.m of ODZ land in close vicinity to Smart City in Kalkara. The villas are being proposed instead of a cluster of roofless dilapidated old buildings inter- spersed on a plot of land which currently enjoys a low degree of protection as an ecological buffer zone to the Rinella val- ley. It also includes a protected British defence post - which will not be touched by the pro- posed development - and is in close proximity to the sched- uled red house. If the project is approved the existing ruins will be demolished in their entirity. The development proposed by Duncan Deguara Attard, presented as the "reconstruc- tion of dilapidated buildings" to be used as "residential dwellings", is being proposed on a plot fronting Triq Santu Rokku, Sqaq Tewma and Triq Joseph Calleia. In the applica- tion Deguara declared that he does not own the entire site but has been granted the consent of the owners to apply. The application also foresees the construction of a 2.4m-high boundary wall around the site as well as the planting of rows of cypress, olive, pine and judas trees. Present policies allow owners of ODZ dwellings to apply for swimming pools once the development is approved. But no pools are being pro- posed at this stage. A discredited rural policy approved in 2014 permits the conversion of countryside ru- ins in to villas if developers can prove that the original buildings served as dwellings. It was the public outrage at the approval of a villa with pool in- stead of a ruin in Qala in Gozo which added urgency to a re- vamp of the 2014 policy com- menced following a probe of ODZ permits by MaltaToday in 2016. A proposed new policy launched by Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia last year does away with this con- troversial loophole. But the policy still has to be approved. In April a spokesperson for the PA attributed the delay in the approval of the new policy to the time needed to assess the "voluminous" submissions it has received. The policy will require another round of pub- lic consultation before the pol- icy is given the seal of approval by the government. The poli- cy as proposed will apply to all pending applications but until the policy is approved, plan- ning commissions will still as- sess applications according to the discredited policy.