Sliema residents and a heritage NGO will be appealing a permit for two new hotels, both 14 storeys high, in a residential area between Bisazza Street and Zimmermann Barbaro Street.
Last month, the Planning Authority gave the go-ahead to Dale Spiteri to build two three-star hotels with a total of 158 rooms in an area featuring multiple old townhouses that still maintain their traditional facades.
The hotels will also feature an indoor pool, gym, spa, self-imposed piazza along part of the site frontage on Zimmermann Barbaro Street, and an outdoor pool on the roof of each hotel.
Over the weekend, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar and the Sliema Residents Association said they were planning on appealing the permit.
The hotel and self-catering suites will have "a huge impact on the neighbourhood, cutting off light and air into surrounding houses, overshadowing solar panels and a large garden", they said in a joint statement.
They claimed the new accommodation would generate some 1,000 vehicle trips a day for tourists, staff and suppliers, "producing toxic emissions which will be trapped in an urban canyon".
They noted that in order to reach the hotel, vehicles will have to drive through Qui is-Sana and St Anthony Street, adding to Sliema’s general traffic congestion and pollution, and turning the narrow St Anthony Street into a main road, exacerbating the gridlock at the ferries.
"All this contravenes regulations to safeguard environmental health from air and noise pollution and will contribute to an increase in pollution-related diseases like asthma, hypertension, coronary problems and cancer," FAA and the residents said.
"Outside catering facilities will disturb residents further with noise pollution in the alley, while nighttime noise is expected to echo from the rooftop pool bar," they added.
According to FAA coordinator Astrid Vella, one of the hotels and part of the other fall within a residential area where Local Plans do not allow the development of hotels.
"The application also violates SPED regulations, as it does not identify, protect and enhance the residential amenity and character of the area.
"The developers and the PA ignored the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage’s insistence that the traditional old houses on Zimmermann Barbaro Lane be preserved."
The objectors warned the hotel will destroy almost half of a large green area hidden below the houses in Tigne Street where a fresh-water stream runs to this day.
"Residents were outraged to learn that while such areas were protected as green enclaves in other towns, Sliema and St Julian’s were systematically deprived of such designations in 2006, to allow developers a free hand," they said in the statement.
Tigne Street residents pointed to six other major hotels planned for the area, with FAA saying it has been campaigning for Carrying Capacity Studies since 2018.
"It has now been revealed that the Planning Authority has carried out such a study, however, it has not been released to the public."