Decision postponed
A decision on a controversial application to turn this dilapidated room on ODZ land into a sprawling villa in Qala, Gozo, has been postponed by a month.
The hearing on a controversial planning application to turn a dilapidated room into a sprawling villa has been postponed by a month by the Planning Commission after the developers promised to scale down the development.
The applicant, Mark Agius, known as Ta’ Dirjanu, wants to turn the room, situated in an Outside Development Zone, into a villa with a footprint several times larger than the original structure.
Times of Malta recently reported that the land was sold to a Excel Investments Ltd last January for the sum of €500,000, which was described by real estate agents as being five times the market value. The majority shareholder of Excel Investments is property developer Joseph Portelli. The other shareholders are Agius and Daniel Refalo.
The applicant has claimed that the room was inhabited around a century ago by a woman called Grazia Mifsud. A controversial PA policy says that ODZ structures can be converted into residences as large as 200 square metres if it can be proven that it was used as a residence at any point before 1992.
The PA was presented with a document claiming that Grazia Mifsud was found dead inside the room in 1921. This was backed by another document, obtained from the Qala parish.
But Times of Malta reported that neither document provides an address for Mifsud and that the only information in these documents is that the woman was found dead at 4am of 17 August 1921 “in a house without a number in the Ta’ Muxi area in Qala.”
Furthermore, another document the newspaper has obtained shows that the woman lived in another house in the centre of the village.
During yesterday’s meeting, the planning directorate insisted that the death certificate was not proof of residence.
But architect Elizabeth Ellul, the chairperson of the Planning Commission, complained about the presence of the planning directorate officials, saying this was a first.
While the case officer has recommended a refusal, the commission said turning down the application would not be consistent with decisions taken in similar cases, adding that this particular application did not go against the aforementioned policy.
“The policy is what it is. It is not the remit of the Commission to change the approved policy but it us up to the legislator to decide any policy changes,” Ellul said.
The hearing was postponed to 1 October, with the developers asked to submit new plans.