Residents vented their frustration on Saturday against plans for an 11-storey hotel in a narrow residential street in Sliema. 

The hotel, planned for Howard Street, will cause significant negative impacts on residents in terms of disturbance and traffic if it is approved, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar Coordinator Astrid Vella said at a press conference attended by affected residents. 

Plans for the hotel are currently before the Planning Authority, with a case officer having recommended that they be refused. 

Ms Vella noted that the hotel would only be providing 15 parking spots - fewer than the 27 required and a completely inadequate number for an 83-bedroom hotel, she said. 

Residents would also be deprived of up to 12 on-street parking bays to accommodate increased traffic, she added.

She said Transport Malta had also expressed serious reservations about the lack of space provided for suppliers' trucks, coaches and vans.

Ms Vella and the residents expressed their anger at the way developers were being allowed to ride roughshod over their rights in Sliema. 

She held that the application should be turned down as it does not respect the North Harbour Local Plan which stipulates that hotels are to be restricted to Sliema's commercial town centre and are not to be permitted in residential areas. 

Ms Vella pointed out that since the Planning Authority allowed the demolition of Sliema's largest hotel, The Fortina, built on a site granted exclusively for touristic purposes, it should not now be allowing new hotels in residential areas where they are not allowed. 

Residents are also concerned that developers could be exploiting a Malta Tourism Authority policy that allows "high-quality" hotels to rise higher than apartment blocks, with the building subsequently convert to flats two floors higher that what is normally allowed.

Residents and activists attending the Saturday press conference. Photo: Jonathan Borg

Sliema councillor Paul Radmilli added that the proposed hotel is hemmed in by residential buildings on all sides, and that the blank party walls it will create are not permissible under the MTA policy. The architect's attempt to add fake windows on the blank party wall did not make them acceptable, he added. 

The speakers said that the proposed development will have a cumulative negative effect on Sliema's already congested streets, creating an urban canyon which traps air pollution which contributes to asthma, heart problems, stroke and cancer. 

If this permit is accepted, it will create a precedent for other hotels to be permitted all over Sliema's residential areas, reducing even further the quality of life in this town, they said.