The Planning Board on Thursday gave its green light to the demolition and redevelopment of the Mellieħa Bay Hotel, despite its two-fold increase in size and experts' concerns about environmental impacts.

The board heard how the gross floor area will double from the current 26,000 to 50,000 square metres, with the project’s architect, Edwin Mintoff, justifying this by saying that most of the new hotel will be below road level.

He went to great lengths to explain how the hotel, which was closed in 2019, had been struggling to operate in line with MTA expectations. He said the applicant downsized the original proposal, which included 472 rooms, to the latest 359 rooms due to environmental and heritage constraints.

The accommodation will be spread across 11 interconnected blocks of heights varying between one and seven storeys.

The new hotel will have five restaurants; a snackeria, an ice-cream outlet, two internal bars and two pool bars, an entertainment hall, indoor and outdoor kids’ play area, indoor teens’ play area, two retail outlets, a spa area with indoor pool, treatment rooms and a salon, and two pools and pool areas - one designated for families and one for adults only.

The project also includes soft/hard landscaping, restoration and construction of rubble walls and restoration of part of the coast and two LPG storage tanks of a volume of 5,000 litres each. The developers plan to install two seawater reverse osmosis plants for second-class water.

He said the new hotel will be a five-star inclusive hotel “of very high quality” and the project will see the reinstatement of the foreshore to its natural state.

Mintoff said that during preparatory works, remains of a battery dating to the knights’ period were discovered so this was included it in the proposal. It will be restored and used as an exhibition area.

A burial site which had been completely covered had also been discovered. It was investigated by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and for this to be restored and preserved, the developers shifted the internal road reducing even more the number of rooms, he said.

The Environmental Impact Assessment, published last year, found that the project will have major impact on its surroundings, including the loss of a considerable number of trees as well as excessive noise levels during the construction phase. The demolition will take around four months.

The developers proposed to set up a concrete batching plant on site to facilitate the construction process and mitigate adverse effects .

The site, spanning 16.3 hectares, was acquired from the government in 1963 through a 150-year emphyteusis. The hotel had been in operation between 1969 and October 2019, in anticipation of the eventual redevelopment.

The owners are the Mizzi Group of Companies.

Prior to its closure, the hotel comprised 313 guest rooms, together with amenities including food and beverage outlets, conference facilities, two outdoor swimming pools, an indoor pool, surface carparks and two tennis courts.

The EIA found that almost 123,000 cubic metres of material will be excavated, with around two-thirds of it being rock and the rest blue clay.

It said there will be major impacts on geomorphological features, extraction of mineral resources, change in groundwater quality and change in surface runoff patterns. With mitigation measures, the latter two will be reduced to minor impacts.

Although the area is considered to be low-value agricultural land, the project was expected to contribute to the loss of potential agricultural land.

NGO representative Romano Cassar was the only member to vote against the project. The other 10 members voted in favour. The representative of the Mellieħa council also voted in favour, praising the developers for addressing its concerns, which were mainly related to screening the hotel from the road with large trees.

Board chairman Emmanuel Camilleri endorsed the project and recommended more landscaping, in line with the council’s request, and an increase in the provision of parking on site.