Mega-developer Joseph Portelli’s business partner, Silvan Mizzi, has submitted plans for a four-storey mixed-use development in Paola, adjacent to the mosque.

In an application which is still due to be officially published, Mizzi is proposing to excavate a site in Triq il-Perit Dom Mintoff, corner with Triq Bormla, just across the road from the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology.

Through his architect, Neil Markham, Mizzi is proposing parking spaces at basement level, two food outlets and five garages at road level, a maisonette at ground floor level and 26 one-bedroomed apartments at the first, second and third floors. The proposal also includes three lifts, an underground reservoir and the installation of signs.

According to the plans, most of the proposed apartments are studio apartments, with the kitchen, living, dining and bedroom all in the same room. A few have a separate bedroom.

One of the proposed shops is class 4C, which includes food and drink establishments where cooking is not allowed on site. The other shop is for a catering establishment which falls under Class 4D, offering hot or cold food and drinks for consumption on the premises where cooking is allowed.

Mizzi declared he is the owner of the 620-square-metre site that lies within the development zone.

The only regulator to comment about the planned project so far was the Malta Tourism Authority, which noted that layout plans did not indicate the bathrooms for both outlets, which, it said, was a requisite.

“Once amended plans are uploaded, the Malta Tourism Authority should be notified to provide its comments accordingly,” it said.

The site is close to where the Planning Authority last year approved a 17-apartment development in Triq Bormla and Triq Qalb ta’ Ġesu.

At the hearing last May, Paola Labour mayor Dominic Grima insisted that his locality would not handle too many “student studio apartments” that increase population density, strain infrastructure, eat away residents’ parking spaces and increase traffic congestion.

“I expect fees for developers who eat away at parking spaces to be even higher than normal because we are the ones who will face the problems,” he had said.

Despite his pleas, the Planning Commission voted in favour of dramatically slashing the developer’s fee from €110,000 to €35,000 to cover the lack of provision of parking.

Due to the growing MCAST facilities in Corradino, large areas of Paola, just like the area around the University of Malta, in Msida are considered student priority areas – meaning the PA allows for the construction of one-bedroom apartments intended mostly for students.

But Grima and the local council have now set out on a mission to reduce the student priority area as much as possible, arguing that Paola is already stretched due to intense commercial activity.

“We do not want to do away with it completely. We just need to find the right balance,” he had told Times of Malta.