A proposed road cutting through a green lung in Victoria will serve no purpose other than to allow further development, according to NGOs, residents and the local council.

Skirting around 5,500 square metres of open green land, the road will have an entrance and exit on the same street and will not be connecting to other roads.

But what it will do is provide more street frontage, which will allow for previously land previously protected from development behind the site to open up to construction, according to architect Tara Cassar, objecting on behalf of NGO Din l-Art Ħelwa.

To safeguard green enclaves within a neighbourhood, the building footprint cannot exceed 30 metres from the official building alignment. That means that, currently, only a tiny fraction of the land (shaded in yellow on the left side in the picture, below) is open to development, however, once the road is built, the total block of land will have the potential to be developed, according to Cassar.

“It is clear this road is being built to increase the development potential of the site,” she said.

“This will be detrimental to the community, since it will eliminate all existing green open space and create a crippling increase in development density,” she pointed out.

While Cassar could not confirm rumours circulating within the community of 170 apartments planned for the area, she said there was definitely potential for that number of apartments to go up on the site.

Picture shows how the road will increase the land allowed to be developed. Photo: Tara Cassar/Din L-Art Ħelwa

Mayor’s views

The proposal was not conducive to good planning, she said, and went against policy designed to promote sustainable development outlined in the Strategic Plan For Environment and Development.

Victoria mayor Josef Schembri also came out strongly against the development since it involved the demolition of vernacular structures in the area, including a historic farmhouse which,he said, is deeply characteristic of the area known as Tal-Belliegha and which has a niche in the façade that is dedicated to St Joseph.

The historic farmhouse, which will be demolished to make way for the road. Photo: Daniel Cilia, Din l-Art Ħelwa.

The proposal has so far received over 100 objections, from a number of local residents, one of whom told Times of Malta yesterday that the community only stood to lose from this development.

“Apart from structures of architectural and cultural significance that will be lost, the traffic would become atrocious here,” he said.

At the time of writing, the developer behind the application, Joe Cordina, did not respond to requests for a comment by Times of Malta.

The vernacular features inside the old farmhouse. Photo: Daniel Cilia, Din l-Art Ħelwa.