PA decision on db Group's St George's Bay tower expansion deferred again

The Planning Authority has again deferred a decision on whether to grant db Group permission to add an extra seven floors to its mega-development in St George’s Bay.

The Planning Board agreed Thursday to defer the sitting for another three weeks after the applicants filed new drawings last month, reducing the number of apartments from 82 to 60.

The size of the project remains the same.

The board said the public had not been given enough time to review the application after the new drawings were submitted on October 22.

This is the second time a vote on the application has been deferred; last month, the board suspended its meeting due to a row over the appointment of the NGO representative to the board.

The group, through architect Darren Sciberras, applied to expand on a previous permit, seeking to extend the two 17-and 18-storey towers to 23- and 25-storeys (PA 3218/25).

The expansion will only affect the residential component of the development. Besides the apartments, the large complex will also include a hotel, shopping complex and lido beach club.

Last month, a planning case officer recommended the application for approval, noting that the latest changes remain within the permissible Floor Area Ratio for the area.

During the sitting, architect Sciberras informed the board that the expansion would not impact public open space, which makes up 41 per cent of the site area. He added the expansion would increase the gross floor area (GFA) by 10 per cent, which he argued was in line with the maximum GFA permitted.

Sciberras also compared the height of the towers to other towers in Malta; the two towers will reach a similar height to Portomaso, but will be smaller than Mercury towers and Fort Cambridge.

Architect Anton Valentino, representing the Swieqi local council, reminded the board that one of the conditions for the development, imposed by Transport Malta, was the need for major road improvements in the area.

Valentino said that prior to the approval of the first permit, Infrastructure Malta had applied for a road network upgrade (application PA 6089/19), which proposed constructing a network of tunnels. “But this proposed network upgrade was withdrawn. This does not exist,” he pointed out.

He argued that neither the proposed expansion nor the current development satisfied the condition.

An architect on the project responded, saying Transport Malta had already given its consent for the project, based on another application filed by Infrastructure Malta (PA 6079/25), which proposes road network improvements between St Julian’s and Pembroke. That application is currently being screened.

NGO Representative Romano Cassar flagged how the towers would increase by 39 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively: “The impact is substantial, not minor.”

Both Cassar and Pembroke mayor Kaylon Zammit asked the architect whether the developers could provide assurances they would not apply to increase the height of the development again.

“There is no intention to file an application to increase the number of floors,” the architect responded.

The PA approved plans to build a 17-storey tower and an 18-storey one, alongside a 12-storey hotel at the site in 2021 (PA 3807/17), after initially planning to build a 38-storey tower. The decision was appealed, but a court gave the go-ahead to complete the project last year.

Excavation and construction work at the site began in October last year.

Last month, the Pembroke local council agreed to vote against the development in a U-turn from an earlier decision taken in July.

Councillors had previously agreed to vote in favour of the proposed extension in return for a €3 million payment from db Group meant for local community projects.