A six-point plan to change St George's Bay's Villa Rosa local plan published by the Planning Authority on Tuesday was lifted almost word-for-word from a list of suggestions drafted by the project's developers and later presented to Cabinet.

In a presentation drafted by the project's developers (AC Group) and architects (Dutch architecture firm UNStudio), Cabinet was presented with a list of six "objectives" for the review of the area's local plan.

These included reconfiguring zoning boundaries, establishing "allowable building heights for each sub-zone", and setting the "maximum gross Developable Floorspace", among other things.

Each of these suggestions was reproduced almost verbatim by the Planning Authority when launching a public consultation into the review on Tuesday.

The move raises questions over the level of influence that developers have in setting Malta's planning regulations.

When approached for comment, a spokesperson for AC Group simply said that "AC Group never delivered a presentation to Cabinet".

Questions sent to the Planning Authority remain unanswered at the time of publication.

The news comes shortly after Times of Malta revealed that Cabinet had given its go-ahead for a partial review of the St George’s Bay local plans, the site upon which developer Anthony Camilleri hopes to build a series of hotels and high-rise buildings.

The wheels for the review were set in motion on Tuesday, with the PA launching the first phase of its public consultation.

What do the proposed local plans say?

Details are woolly at this stage, although a leaked presentation delivered to Cabinet by the project’s developers hint at what’s to come.

For a start, the PA says that it wants to “reconfigure” the sub-zones in the area, meaning it will re-jig eight zones into which the site is currently divided.

This reconfiguration, the PA says, will identify specific zones for “higher quality hotels”, others for residential development, and decide where to place offices, restaurants, shops and car parks.

Plans for the project show that it will feature four separate hotels, three of them housed in high-rise towers with the fourth at the Cresta Quay site further along the bay. Other parts of the bay are earmarked for office space, a language school and a convention centre.

Developers say they want to build higher but increase open space at ground level. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

The PA also promises “an increase in the minimum areas of public open space, surpassing current local plan allocations”, meaning that the small slivers of public open space designated in the current local plan are set to grow.

The project’s plans reveal a proposed 7,350sqm “public piazza” opposite the beach, replacing an area currently designated for low-intensity development.

The revision will also set new building heights for each zone. It is not clear what this means in practice but if the 39-floor and 22-floor towers presented to Cabinet are anything to go by, the area is set for high-rise developments.

The review will also set upper limits for how much floor space can be developed in each zone. Again, the PA makes no mention of how much this will actually be at this stage.

But what are local plans in reality?

In a nutshell, a local plan tries to map out a vision for the future development of a town by establishing areas that can be developed and others where development is restricted or forbidden.

The local plan will also lay out what sort of development can be carried out in specific areas, designating one area for residential development, another for commercial use, and so on.

So a local plan will say, for instance, that one part of a town is a residential zone in which only homes can be built, while shops, supermarkets or other commercial outlets are restricted to another part of town.

A local plan sets out what sort of development can take place where. Image: Planning Authority

While the local plan does set out the height limitations of buildings in each zone, it generally looks at the bigger picture and doesn’t really get into the minutiae of how each individual development should take place.

The PA has developed other planning and policy documents that do this, regulating how anything from cemeteries to fuel stations should be built.

When it comes to the Villa Rosa project, two of these documents are particularly relevant.

One is the SPED (Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development), the PA’s top policy document. The other is a policy document adjusting the height limitations for hotels. We will return to these later.

Why is changing local plans a big deal?

One reason why this revision has raised eyebrows is because local plans almost never change.

Malta’s current local plans were drawn up in 2006 with the then-PN government controversially adding large tracts of untouched land into the development zone.

Subsequent Labour governments have shied away from tinkering with the local plans too much, frequently pinning the blame for Malta’s increasing urban sprawl on the 2006 revisions and falsely claiming that changing local plans to shrink development zones would violate people’s right to develop.

But there have been a handful of instances where local plans were changed. Last year, for instance, the local plan for Ħondoq ir-Rummien was amended to forbid any development whatsoever on the unspoilt bay.

The local plan for Ħondoq ir-Rummien was recently changed to forbid any development on the site. File photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Earlier still, the plans for Mrieħel and Marsa were changed to do away with building height restrictions in the area, a move that paved the way for the 19-floor Quad towers in Mrieħel.

Critics fear that the Villa Rosa revision is similarly intended to ease the way for developers to build a proposed mega-complex on the site.

What do the area’s current local plans say?

The current local plans divide the site into eight separate zones, each with their own development criteria and limitations.

The intended use of each zone and the type of development allowed is meticulously detailed in the area’s policy, which goes by the name of NHPV 13.

The eight development zones range from areas where high-density development is permitted, to others earmarked for single-floor bungalows or the retention of existing gardens.

It also outlines three other areas where development is forbidden, namely the beach at St George’s Bay, small slivers of natural coast on either side of the beach, and a little pocket of land just off the beach, designated as “public open space”.

What other policies govern the area?

The SPED and the hotel height limitation policy bring an added layer of complexity to the matter.

For a start, SPED designated the entirety of Paceville as a business hub when it was published in 2015, meaning that any applications for development in the area need to be viewed with this designation in mind.

What this means in practice is not set in stone but it’s not hard to see that, when in doubt, this designation swings the pendulum in favour of development, at the expense of conservation. Indeed, the Villa Rosa project’s own environmental impact assessment admits that the proposal only exists thanks to “the opportunities made possible by the Business Hub designation”.

Secondly, the height limitations adjustment for hotels, published in 2014, says that four and five-star hotels can build two floors higher than whatever the local plans allow.

With the current local plans maxing out at a height of six floors (plus penthouse), this means that anyone building a four or five-star hotel in the area can actually rise to eight floors.

The developers for the proposed Villa Rosa project seem to have taken a dim view of these height limitations, applying to build a 34-floor tower and two 27-floor towers overlooking the bay, although they now say they are willing to reduce their overall height.

Developers applied to build a 39-floor tower and two 22-floor towers along the bay. Image: AC Group & UNStudio

So, what’s next?

With the public consultation stage now open, the ball is in the public’s court, at least for the time being.

People have until November 25 to send the PA their thoughts on the review, after which a second public consultation phase is likely to be launched, giving some more concrete details on what changes are being proposed.