Updated 12pm
A court has overturned Planning Authority decisions to approve two apartment blocks with pools in rural Gozo.
The development of the blocks was proposed in two different applications in 2020 and 2021. Activists had insisted they could not be judged singularly and in a vacuum, as they formed part of an attempt to fragment a mega-development to avoid the scrutiny such a large project would require.
In one (05048/20), Mark Agius, a developer and business partner of magnate Joseph Portelli, sought to build 22 flats with 15 underlying garages and a pool in a Sannat area that is partially outside the development zone.
The proposal, which Agius first presented in June 2020, was given the green light by both the PA and its appeals hall, the Environment and Planning Tribunal, despite hundreds of objections and against the advice of the project’s assigned PA case officer.
The case officer had advised the PA to refuse the application, noting that both the building (due to the failure to ensure proper setback of a penthouse level) and swimming pool (which was proposed on ODZ land) ran counter to the PA’s own policies and guidelines.
In the other one (02035/21), Agius applied to similarly excavate a site and construct 29 apartments, 20 basement garages and pool. It was approved in 2021.
Heritage NGO Din L-Art Ħelwa filed an appeal against the PA’s approvals. When the EPRT also approved the developments, it took the issue to the law courts.
On Wednesday, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti noted - in two separate judgements - that the EPRT had incorrectly applied policies when it approved the developments.
While the EPRT justified approval of the pools by citing a policy that allowed them “within the curtilage of a legally established development”, a proposed development that had not yet been approved, much less built, could not be considered “legally established”, the court found.
Nor was the pool “within the curtilage” of the development, as it would have been divided from the building by a public passage, with an underground private tunnel linking them.
In the case of 05048/20, the court also overruled the tribunal’s justification for approving the proposed building at a height of three storeys on one side and four on the other.
Objectors – as well as the PA case officer assigned to the case – had said the application ran counter to a requirement in Gozo’s local plan which specifies that a setback is required when facing sites with the same allowable building height.
The PA and tribunal thought otherwise, with the latter citing a different part of the same policy to justify the proposal.
But the court ruled that applicants were correct, saying that the Gozo local plan “is clear about indicated setbacks, even when facades face onto a street.”
It therefore revoked the EPRT’s approval of Agius’ permits, and revoked the planning approval for the development’s swimming pool and additional floor.