The traditional streetscapes and urban conservation areas of Pietà are increasingly threatened by a wave of planning applications that seek to build higher in the area.

New applications will shadow historic buildings, ruin streetscapes and breach planning policies if they are approved, according to experts and activists who fear Pietà is next to suffer a construction onslaught.

Heritage activist and architect Edward Said noted that the need for a revision of local plans has never been more pressing, as more traditional streetscapes face ruin with applications seeking to build up two-storey houses to blocks of four or more storeys.

“While not all of these buildings may be directly in the urban conservation areas, some of them are on the border or well within the buffer zone of scheduled buildings, which should make them non-starters,” Said pointed out.

Said, who is part of the conservation group Friends of Villa Frere, said many of the buildings in question are in the vicinity of Villa Frere and Villa Guardamangia, once the home of Queen Elizabeth II. Should they be built, they may overshadow and obscure the heritage buildings in their wake.

“While all of these cases are still being processed by the Planning Authority, one questions how they even reach a certain stage,” he said.

“It’s an assault on the traditional character of the area, as it is a series of owners of two-storey buildings that are asking to turn them into apartment blocks, in an area full of Grade 3 scheduled houses, not to mention Villa Guardamangia.”

One such application is PA/4190/23 in Triq Santa Monika, Pietà , where applicant Gilbert Bugeja and architect Pierre Farrugia seek to demolish three townhouses and turn them into a five-floor apartment block.

The three houses, named Charles House, Spring House and Summer House, are located across the road from the Guardamangia parish church. They will be turned into a maisonette, 16 apartments and two penthouses if the application is approved.

Said noted that these are excellent examples of mid-20th century domestic Maltese architecture, with a pair of the houses being considered ‘twins’ with an art deco design sensibility.

“I cannot but underscore how important it is that these three houses be preserved in their entirety so as to protect the integrity of one of Guardamangia’s most prominent streets on which stands the Grade 1 parish church,” Said pointed out in his objection letter, where he urged for the houses to be preserved.

Facades 'worthy of preservation'

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage said these houses have facades that are of significant cultural heritage value and contribute to a streetscape that is “worthy of preservation”.

Meanwhile, on the Pietà seafront, the application PA/2681/24 seeks to add another three floors to a group of four dwellings that currently stand at three floors.

Applicant Keith Attard Portughes and architect Maurizio Ascione have applied to turn this property into a block of seven apartments, with a penthouse, as well as two shops on the ground floor of the building.

Din l-Art Ħelwa, which objected to this application, said the proposed extension to the building posed serious concerns about the way it will impact the existing urban landscape and fails to respect the rhythm and proportions on the nearby traditional streetscape within the UCA.

“The site is highly visible, itself being a scheduled site and is surrounded by several distinct scheduled properties together attributing to the site’s unique heritage context. The proposed development will unquestionably detract from the context’s heritage value through the proposed massive volume that will tower over its surroundings,” they said.

And just a few doors down, plans for the abandoned Sa Maison Retirement Home still hang in the balance, as its owners have applied to rebuild the facility up to nine floors.

Former Superintendent of Cultural Heritage Joseph Magro Conti has written a detailed objection, saying that the proposal runs counter to several planning policies, will negatively impact scheduled heritage properties and will increase the building density in the area, as well as traffic and increased pressure on already overloaded infrastructure.

Another application on the Pietà seafront, PA/06740/23, is proposing to rise to eight storeys, with Friends of Villa Frere saying the block threatens to mutilate views from Villa Frere to the Msida Bastion Gardens, severing an important visual and historical link bet­ween the two heritage sites.