Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1466806
7 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 4 MAY 2022 JAMES DEBONO AN extensive tourist accommodation facility is being proposed instead of two disused livestock farms and adja- cent agricultural land, in the Balluta area of Marsaxlokk's Triq il-Power Station. The Ballut area is designated as a Special Area of Conservation and an area of landscape value. The development would be sited just 100m from the new hotel approved on the former Hunters Tower restaurant, and 300m from the Tas-Silġ fort and Electrogas power station. The development will be split into seven, separate one-storey blocks of around 130sq.m to 220sq.m, the larg- est of which will be the reception and breakfast area. Altogether, they will occupy a 1,270sq.m footprint with a large pool and deck. The hotel would replace two existing sheep and goat farms, altogether set over a 1,200sq.m footprint on the west- ern part of the site. The area in total is over 3,800sq.m, with the seven blocks intersperesed across the whole area. Developers Alfred, Jeffrey and Mi- chael Fenech of AMJ Invest have de- clared full ownership of the land in question. In 2017, the Planning Authority ap- proved a 'development brief' which identified an area around the Hunters Tower restaurant for tourism devel- opment. This led to the approval of a 125-room hotel instead of the restau- rant and its surrounding garden. The brief does not envisage any develop- ment on the site of the proposed de- velopment. This means that any development on this site will have to be in line with the rural policy which allows the rede- velopment of disused livestock farms having ceased operation for at least 10 years, but limits any replacement to a single dwelling not exceeding 200sq.m. Marsaxlokk fields and farms eyed for tourist accommodation Seven-block 'hotel' proposed on livestock farms sand agricultural land zoned as special area of conservation in Marsaxlokk