It is indeed a sad day for our heritage when the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage (SHC) abdicates its role as guardian of cultural heritage to provide its clearance for the development of a 30-room boutique hotel on Saqqajja Square, Rabat, marking the start of the destruction and commercialisation of a fine row of beautiful houses designed by Andrea Vassallo (1856-1928) and documented in Leonard Mahoney’s 2,000 Years of Maltese Architecture.
The green light by the heritage watchdog ironically comes a few weeks after the laudable initiative of the Rabat local council to schedule the historic houses with articulate architecture on Saqqajja Square and formal gardens on St Augustine Avenue, Rabat. The iconic avenue is one of the last harmonious avenues on the island with uniform houses on both sides, all the way from St Mark’s church to Howard Gardens, leading to the Mdina entrance.
The villas that are the subject of the development application lie within an area of archaeological importance of Rabat and Mdina, scheduled by Government Notice 766 of 1998.
The superindendence initially objected to the development on a number of grounds, including that the excessive development “threatened the values of the Area of High Landscape Value” and that the extensive ground disturbance posed “an unacceptable threat to archaeology that may survive within the footprint”.
Cultural heritage features, particularly structural remains dating to the Classical period, are recorded in the area. World War II public air-raid shelters are present under some of the houses. Air-raid shelters are cultural heritage features and should be protected in full respect of the Cultural Heritage Act 2002 (CAP 445).
The concerns of the superindentence faded away, however, as the proposal was reduced from two to one additional storey on Saqqajja Square and from five to four additional storeys in the garden on St Augustine Avenue.
It has indeed become commonplace for developers to start off with an outrageously unacceptable application and then to scale down in the hope that the authorities will buy into an improved, albeit equally unacceptable proposition, only to be followed up a few years down the line with further development.
Will the boutique hotel in question be entitled to avail itself in future of the additional two storeys allowed for hotels?
The site is also designated in terms of the Local Plan as a two-storey residential area. The mushrooming of so-called boutique hotels in the midst of residential areas has taken off in other areas, Rabat included.
It appears that in assessing applications of this nature, the scale and size of boutique hotels and their impact on the residential neighbourhood is ignored. It is one thing to have a typical boutique which brings out the best of our architectural heritage and which tastefully blends into a residential area, but it is a completely different matter to sanction a 30-room hotel with services, noise pollution, generator, waste disposal and added traffic that inevitably comes in the wake of such commercialisation, irrevocably altering the fabric of a unique residential area.
It appears commercial interests invariably trump residential concerns with the consequence that residents are eventually squeezed out of their homes, which are rendered unbearable by unscrupulous speculators.
Development policies and guidelines appear to count for nothing in the face of unabated development.
In terms of the Development Policies, Guidance and Standards published in 2015, it is clearly provided that “development in gardens in Urban Conservation Areas should be resisted”. This notwithstanding, far from being resisted, we have witnessed numerous applications for development of gardens within UCAs, including the application under consideration in St Augustine Avenue, Rabat, where it is proposed to construct four storeys in a formal garden bang in the midst of a serene residential avenue.
A number of NGOs – Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Moviment Graffitti, Malta Archeological Society and Din l-Art Ħelwa – have all joined the residents and the Rabat local council in opposing the development of the boutique hotel, which will alter the historical and social fabric of this area in Rabat.
My appeal is to the Planning Authority, to stand up to its responsibilities and halt the uglification of Malta, at least by protecting our village cores and urban conservation areas before it is too late.
Malta is becoming irrevocably unrecognisable, more so with a cultural heritage watchdog that has become a timid, friendly dog and may soon become irrelevant… there being no more cultural heritage to be protected.
Kris Borg is a lawyer and lecturer at the Department of Commercial Law at the University of Malta.