Developer Carlo Stivala has filed a planning application for a second 15-storey hotel on the Strand in Sliema, just one corner away from where he has already filed a planning application for a similarly sized hotel.

Planning application PA/03229/23 is seeking to turn a plot on the corner of Triq ix-Xatt and Triq San Lunzjata, into a second 15-floor hotel, according to the most recent drawings filed on the application.

It comes just days after Times of Malta reported that the planning application PA/02965/23, a plot of land on the corner of Triq ix-Xatt and Triq San Vincenz, which currently houses a Labour Party club in a three-storey premises, could be developed into a 15-floor three-star hotel.

If both these applications are approved, they would effectively book-end the row of buildings between the Labour Party club and the premises occupied by Marks and Spencer, an area characterised by buildings of nine storeys or less, by two 15-floor hotels.

Projects would wipe out views of Valletta for hundreds of residents

If approved, the two projects would effectively wipe out views of Valletta for hundreds of residents.

The site of the Triq Lunzjata hotel spans some 216 square metres, with architecture firm Falzon and Cutajar listed as the architects of the project.

The project is set to include the construction of a Class 3B hotel with a restaurant and 79 overlying rooms. Currently, the site is unoccupied, with construction on a previous project seeming to have started at some point, but which to date remains unfinished, with exposed beams and rods visible at street level from the Sliema sea front.

A planning application filed on the site in 2013 and approved in 2015 sought the demolition of an existing bank on the site and the eventual construction of a commercial shop and overlying apartments that would rise to eight storeys.

Drawings of the proposed building show the proposed facades that would show on Triq ix-Xatt and Triq Lunzjata. Photo: Falzon and Cutajar via Planning Authority

A second application was filed for the site in 2016, which sought to amend the granted permit with an additional floor, bringing the total height to nine-storeys, and proposing duplex apartments on the 5th and 6th floors.

The application was recommended for refusal by the planning directorate because the plans did not include a parapet wall that would adequately screen services on the site. The case officer also said that the proposed height of the building did not comply with the provisions of a legal notice which require that the height of the facade should not exceed three times the width of the street.

The application was refused by the Planning Board, but that decision was overturned by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, approving the application.