Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/994982
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JUNE 2018 NEWS Owners of abandoned Mellieha hotel fight demolition order JAMES DEBONO THE Planning Authority has served the owners of an abandoned hotel in Mellieha with an enforcement order for leaving the site in a der- elict state. The ruins of the Festi- val Hotel are located in the Sdieri area, between the Red Tower and the boathouses in Mellieha. Now abandoned, the building has been de- faced by graffiti. The area is a buffer zone for an Area of Ecological Im- portance, with the derelict building said to be "causing injury to amenity." The PA has invoked a legal clause that allows executive chairman Johann Buttigieg, as chair of the PA's executive council, to serve an enforce- ment notice on the owners of land where the amenity of the area is injured "by the ap- pearance or structural condi- tion of any building" located on it. According to a PA spokes- person the authority, through its enforcement no- tice, is requesting owners to submit a "method statement" to explain how the injury to amenity "will be mitigated". The enforcement order was issued both against the Lands Authority and Hub- balit Developments Limited – a company owned by the Mizzi Group whose directors include Brian Mizzi, Mau- rice Mizzi and Christopher Mizzi. Hubbalit Developments has already appealed against the enforcement notice. Over the past two years the de- velopers showed a renewed interest in an application presented back in 1994, to demolish the ruins of the old hotel and build a new one. The latest plans submitted on 30 April, a month before the PA enforcement was is- sued, consist of a masterplan for the construction of 23 vil- las. Plans submitted last year – during the electoral cam- paign – foresaw a 1,600sq.m spa and hydrotherapy centre, 12 apartments with pools, a physical rehabilitation cen- tre, bar and restaurant, and conference room. The North West Local Plan which regulates develop- ment in the area states that the redevelopment of exist- ing tourist accommodation facilities in rural areas, will only be considered in very exceptional cases where the new proposal is for a hotel which has very high design quality and considerably im- proves the rural or coastal landscape. But "even in such rare cas- es, the increase in the num- ber of beds or the intensifica- tion of the existing uses will not normally be favourably considered". Ruins of the derelict Festival Hotel are 'injury to amenity' the PA said, but owners Mizzi Group want 23 villas in the protected nature site Lidl wants Fgura local plan changed to get supermarket JAMES DEBONO SUPERMARKET giant Lidl has applied for changes in the local plan zoning in Fgura so that it can accommodate one of its supermarkets on the site of a scrap-yard which was in- cluded inside development zones in 2006. The local plan approved in 2006 had specified that devel- opment on this site should in- clude recreational facilities in the form of public urban open spaces, social and community facilities as well as "residential and commercial/retail devel- opment". Instead, Lidl wants to desig- nate this area as a "mixed-use area", and has submitted plans for a supermarket and other commercial facilities and an extensive parking area. 18% of the site is allocated as "green open space", while de- velopment is set to be limited to a maximum height of 17.5 metres. A planning application to develop the area had been pre- sented by Lidl in 2016 but this was later withdrawn, follow- ing a screening letter in which the PA informed the develop- ers that the project was not in line with the local plan. Former Fgura mayor By- ron Camilleri, today Labour Whip, had objected to the de- velopment, claiming it was in breach of the local plan which specified that any develop- ment in the area must include recreational space. Lidl has already opened two ODZ stores in Luqa and Safi, both approved before the 2008 general elections. Other Lidl stores are in Santa Venera, San Gwann, Zejtun, and Qormi, and in Xewkija, a small part of which is also out- side the development zones. Another supermarket was approved instead of the Fort Blocks industrial complex in Mosta. An application to build a Lidl outlet on ODZ land by the bypass between San Gwann and Birkirkara has been with- drawn.