Mepa board overcomes defence of baroque gardens

The Mepa board yesterday approved an application for the construction of six residential units in Għaxaq, on part of what used to be the ‘wilderness’ part (that is, the part that was not the formal garden, adjoined to 18th century Villa Mekrech, despite strenuous opposition).

The opposition came, as usual, from Astrid Vella, of Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, even though it had its lighter moments.

First Ms Vella, who was noted waiting outside the Mepa offices, somehow did not notice the board was about to meet.

As a result, she entered the board room late when the space allocated for comments from the public on the application, the first to be considered, had passed.

But Mepa chairman Austin Walker allowed Ms Vella to intervene in the midst of the discussion by the board.

Then Ms Vella insisted on making a presentation. This caused an immediate objection from Mepa because it is a long-standing Mepa rule that anyone who intends to submit a presentation must get the USB cleared by Mepa’s IT systems people so that it is checked and does not pose any virus risk to the entire Mepa system.

Ms Vella said she had been talking to Mepa officials over the past days and no one told her anything about this. She had obtained the last photos from Mepa at 7am yesterday morning.

Then it turned out that she was meant to get the pictures on Wednesday evening.

Anyway, on the insistence of Dr Ian Vella Galea who was accompanying Ms Vella, the offending USB was sent to the IT unit to be checked for viruses and the board accepted to wait.

When the USB was brought back, Ms Vella made her presentation. However, something happened when Ms Vella ended her presentation and the IT systems person had quite a job to reconnect the two screens to the system.

The presentation, when it was showed, was just a series of written statements that could have easily been printed and distributed around.

Apart from this interlude, however, Ms Vella had quite substantial points to make.

In essence, her contention was that baroque country houses like Villa Mekrech, mostly built in the 18th or 19th centuries, had both a formal garden and a ‘wilderness’, otherwise known as a vegetable garden.

To safeguard such houses, Ms Vella argued, it is not enough to schedule the buildings and the formal gardens alone as that is not the complete ecosystem. The vegetable garden too must be included in the scheduled area.

It does not make sense, she argued, for apartments to be allowed in the grounds of, say, Villa Parisio in Naxxar and Villa Bologna in Attard. To allow flats to be built in the ‘wilderness’ part of Villa Mekrech is fallacious.

The same thing happened, Ms Vella argued, in the case of Villino Chapelle in St Paul’s Bay which has become hemmed in by development around it and its context has been irretrievably lost.

But Ms Vella’s arguments ran into two serious objections.

First, this application is based on an outline permit. At the time of the outline permit, the area had not yet been scheduled, so the development was allowed. The scheduling was only announced in recent weeks. In fact, one reason why the board had suspended discussion on this application on 20 September was precisely so that the applicant and his architect could see how the scheduling which took place just the week after that affected the application.

Judge Giovanni Bonello argued that whatever one thinks about the application itself, the fact is that this was based on an outline permit .

Ms Vella argued there are now rules regarding such historical buildings and the rules state that applications can only be considered to restore or improve the historical fabric or to put in a swimming pool etc. This application only fulfils two out of nine conditions which must be satisfied.

The second objection to Ms Vella’s argument came from the applicant’s architect, Pierre Sapiano, who pointed out that Villa Mekrech and its garden are surrounded by development, so much that the zone is a residential area.

Mr Sapiano also argued that the original Villa Mekrech site and garden have been split into four units with four different owners and so the context has been lost anyway.

In fact, items that are meant to be protected, such as a belvedere, a pond basin etc are outside the site of this application.

Mr Sapiano also argued that, being on a slope, the development (which is now shorn of any roof structures) will be mostly hidden behind a high rubble wall and invisible from the villa itself. This was hotly contested by Ms Vella.

Then came the issue of trees. Showing a series of aerial photos of the site from 1998 onwards, Ms Vella showed how the trees in the area have progressively been uprooted and thinned.

Mr Sapiano rebutted that this was done by means of a separate application but Ms Vella retorted that the uprooting was carried out beyond what was approved in the permit.

She was then handed a photo by a man sitting among the audience which showed a huge tree that was burned out.

Mr Sapiano protested this tree is outside the area of the application and that any uprooting of trees on the site was done following professional advice (Calamatta) and in the timeframe that was suggested – early autumn.

Ms Vella wanted to know who had assessed the garden and she was told this was done by the Heritage Planning Unit and by the Malta University Services contracted by the applicant.

Ms Vella and even more Dr Vella Galea argued forcefully that once there was an illegality, as they claimed, in the uprooting of trees, the application must be reverted to its starting point and be considered afresh.

Mepa chairman Austin Walker said any such illegalities are a matter for the Enforcement Division and must not cloud the consideration of the application.

Villa Mekrech