Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi has stood by regulations that allow developers to forge ahead with construction works that are being appealed.
Zrinzo Azzopardi was asked about his views on his ministerial colleague Ian Borg building a swimming pool at his Rabat villa at a time when the permit was facing an appeal.
In comments to Times of Malta, the minister said that even if a planning permit is being contested there are ways in which the authority adjudicating that request can either allow or forbid ongoing work at the site in question.
“Planning law has always permitted a procedure that, pending the outcome of an appeal, either the applicant or third parties can apply to suspend the works or allow them to continue,” he said.
“When those works were carried out, there was a planning permit that covered them. The authority will now be looking at this case in the circumstances that have developed after the court sentence," he said.
A court ruled earlier this month that the swimming pool was illegal and struck off its permit, granted by the Planning Authority and then confirmed by its appeals board, the EPRT.
But the decision will arguably have little effect, as Borg completed construction of the pool years ago, while the appeal was still under way.
It was the second time that a court struck off a PA permit for Borg's swimming pool. Borg, who currently serves as Foreign Affairs Minister, was politically responsible for the PA at the time.
Zrinzo Azzopardi said that the PA would be proceeding “according to the law and established procedures” following the outcome of the case.
That echoes a response provided by the PA when Times of Malta asked it how it would proceed in this case.
"The Planning Authority takes note of the relative court judgement and will treat it in the same manner as it does with other similar cases," a PA spokesperson said.
Minister: PA enforcement 'does a lot of work'
Asked if he was happy with the state of enforcement within the PA, in light of reports that construction magnate Charles Polidano had quickly forged ahead with work to redevelop four historic townhouses in Balzan despite his permit being revoked, the minister said that at the end of the day, the authority gets the job done.
“The PA has an enforcement section that does a lot of work, a lot of processes happen and we keep looking at ways how to develop it, but at the end of the day, the authority takes the necessary action,” he said.
Borg first applied to build the swimming pool on Outside Development Zone land adjacent to his 400-square metre villa in 2018. The proposal was approved by the PA within months.
Objector Noel Ciantar filed an appeal against that decision. When his appeal was dismissed by the EPRT, Ciantar turned to the law courts for redress and successfully got the permit revoked.
Borg subsequently filed another, separate application for the pool in December 2019, which the PA approved again. Ciantar again filed an appeal with the EPRT, which however endorsed the PA’s decision to grant the permit in May 2022.
Following this Ciantar again sought redress from the courts, and earlier this month was vindicated.
The Nationalist Party is insisting that Borg must resign following the court's ruling.
Doubt has also been cast on the way Borg acquired the land adjacent to his residence after reports surfaced that the minister, at the time still a parliamentary secretary, allegedly duped a mentally ill man into selling him the field at far below market value and under dubious circumstances.
In 2015, The Malta Independent reported that Borg had bought the land from a 66-year-old man, whose family said that he was severely mentally ill and incapable of making such decisions. The family claimed that two middlemen had taken the man on a bender and plied him with alcohol in a bid to make him more pliable for selling the land.
One of the middlemen subsequently filed a libel suit against the newspaper.
The magistrate hearing that case had said that Borg’s testimony on the affair had “lacked credibility”.