A new planning application threatens to block the views of Villa Frere from the Msida Bastion Cemetery, as it proposes an eight-floor building on the Pietà seafront.

The application, PA/06740/23, was filed by Darren Ciantar, of Ciantar Properties Ltd, and architect Stephen Xuereb Archer. They are asking for permission to build an eight-storey block with ­and a shop on the ground floor level.

Plans show the building on the Pietà seafront will rise to eight floors. Photo: Planning Authority

The site, located on Triq il-Marina, was previously a traditional house that was demolished on the strength of a separate application granted in 2018 to the same developers. It is currently a vacant plot.

A digital render showing the back of the building as seen from just outside the entrance to the gardens of Villa Frere. Photo: Planning Authority

Heritage NGO Friends of Villa Frere expressed concerns about the scale of the application, saying the proposed height of the building will further obliterate the context of the Grade 1 scheduled property, as well as that of Giardino Zamittello and St Luke’s Hospital, which are both listed buildings. The Pietà primary school, which is located close to Villa Frere and behind the site of the proposed building, would be “suffocated” by the development, they argued.

The NGO has fought vociferously to maintain the visual link between the villa and the cemetery

Villa Frere was built by English diplomat and author John Hookham Frere, who came to Malta in 1820 in the hope that the health of his wife, Elizabeth Jemima Hay, the dowager Countess of Erroll, would improve. When she died in 1831, Frere built the villa’s gardens, taking solace in the fact he could see his wife’s final resting place at the Msida Bastion cemetery from within them.

The NGO has since fought vociferously to maintain the visual link between the villa and the cemetery and said the proposed building would “mutilate” the historical view corridor between Villa Frere’s belvederes and the garden of rest.

The application has yet to receive a formal recommendation from the planning directorate’s case officer.

Representations are being received on the proposal until December 15.

The planning board is scheduled to first discuss the application in March.