Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1528159
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 OCTOBER 2024 Timeline August 2006 The local plan zones parts of the Villa Rosa grounds for tourism and residential development, limiting development to a maximum of seven floors. November 2009 Anton Camilleri buys Villa Rosa and Dolphin House from a Cardiff-based investment company for €32 million and €2.6 million, respectively. October 2013 An application is presented envisioning a hotel on the Cresta Quay site, the demolition of Moynihan and Dolphin House, and the erection of a mix of commercial and residential developments rising to a maximum of six floors. May 2016 MaltaToday reveals that Camilleri has plans for a 36-storey tower designed by the office of world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid overlooking St George's Bay. November 2016 The Paceville masterplan excludes the Villa Rosa site from high-rise development while proposing three high-rise buildings on the Cresta Quay site along the coastline, which is also owned by Camilleri. August 2018 The Paceville Masterplan is officially "put on hold" after the revelation that consultants were also engaged in Joseph Portelli's Mercury House project. February 2018 Low-rise development on Villa Rosa grounds, Moynihan House and Cresta Quay is approved, paving the way for the demolition of Moynihan House, despite the EIA recommending its inclusion in the list of scheduled buildings. January 2022 Anton Camilleri presents a Project Development Statement to increase floor space from the 141,000 sq.m approved in 2018 to 237,000 sq.m by opting for a high-rise development. The Height Limitation Adjustment policy for hotels, which permits hotels to rise above local plan limits, is invoked. April 2022 During the election campaign, the Lands Department awards a tender transferring ownership of a public alley in the Villa Rosa site to Camilleri, allowing him to roof it over for the price of €134,000. August 2022 A planning application, including the high-rise development mentioned in the PDS, is presented. March 2023 An EIA is presented for the construction of 789 serviced apartments, 247 hotel rooms, and a total of 16,000sq.m of office space housed in two towers: one of 35 floors and another of 27, as a study warns of negative visual impacts, including on the setting of the villa and a shadowing effect on the public beach. October 2024 The government orders the Planning Authority to commence public consultation on changes that would allow Camilleri to develop the site based on the Height Limitation Adjustment policy for hotels, which permits standalone hotels to rise above local plan limits. hill and dominating the bay, will be lost forever." The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage called for a lowering of the project's height to minimise the visual impact on the cultural land- scape of St George's Bay, particularly Villa Rosa and its gardens. But while visuals of the project were largely met by public derision, it was the current local plan which stood as the greatest obstacle for the project. Government steps in to change goalposts It is therefore no surprise that the declared "objectives" of changes to the local plan policies regulating the devel- opment on the site, suddenly align with the project as pro- posed by Camilleri, in what appears to be a textbook case of project-driven policy. In this case, the local plan changes which envisage an increase in the amount of public open space over that envisaged in the current lo- cal plan, are already in line with Camilleri's plans for a massive public square. But this is also the key to align the project to the policy regulating hotel heights. Crucially, the changes "es- tablish the allowable build- ing heights for each sub- zone, including through the application of the Height Limitation Adjustment Pol- icy for Hotels of 2014." It is this change that will give Camilleri the certainty that he can develop a high- rise in the area, despite the very clear restrictions on building heights found in the current local plan. The changes also add the ar- ea previously occupied by Moynihan House, on which the PA has already approved a six-storey office block, to the Villa Rosa grounds. The published objectives vaguely state that develop- ment on this site should "not create unacceptable envi- ronmental impacts on the surrounding environmental- ly sensitive areas, buildings, features, and recreational spaces." However, it remains to be seen how this generic commitment aligns with the concerns expressed by the government's own cultural heritage watchdog regarding the towers obscuring the his- torical villa. Yet the government may well try to appease public opinion, by for example re- moving the zone allocated for villas, which no longer feature in Camilleri's pro- ject, and possibly reduce the height of the development, which as proposed now will be the highest building in the island – eight floors higher than Townsquare and two floors higher than Mercury Tower and the PX building. The scale of the project proposed in 2022 surely gives the developers lati- tude to make changes to their project, following the example set by other de- velopers like the DB Group who reduced the originally proposed height of the tower from 38 floors to two 17-sto- rey towers, and Townsquare in Sliema which was reduced from 38 floors to 28 floors. In fact Camilleri has already hinted in a press statement this week in which he com- mitted "to reduce the height from the current proposed application and establish the building heights to ensure no future applications for addi- tional floors." But interestingly, no com- mitment was given to reduc- ing the floor space, that is the total amount of developable space contemplated in the application. Changing the goalposts to thwart appeals? Still why should the gov- ernment intervene to change the goalposts for Camilleri's development? One possible reason is that Labour Prime Minister Rob- ert Abela is so keen on having a flagship project happening on his watch that he wants to thwart any appeal by civil so- ciety against it. For while the PA will probably approve the project by invoking the hotel heights policy, arguing that these rules now supersede the local plan's restrictions, environmental NGOs may well appeal this decision, in- sisting that the local plan is very specific in determining the Villa Rosa development heights. Moreover, it is clear that the intention of the local plan was that of protecting views of Villa Rosa and the surrounding gardens. This argument may well prevail in the courts, which, unlike the Planning Author- ity, are independent of the government, as demonstrat- ed by a number of decisions revoking permits issued by the Planning Authority which send shivers down the spine of developers. jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt