A Luqa man’s almost decade-long quest to have an illegally-built façade next door to his Valletta property removed has hit a new stumbling block, after courts decreed that the Planning Authority is not yet obliged to enforce its removal.
The court’s decision, handed down by Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti on Tuesday, is the latest twist in a dispute between Anton Spiteri, a 64-year-old man from Luqa and Antoine Debono, who runs a jewellery shop in Valletta’s Zachary Street.
In 2014, Debono was granted a planning permit to carry out some alterations to a small shop that he was renting from the Lands Authority. These changes included replacing the wooden shop front, a move that the case officer noted “would not normally be allowed in Valletta”, but was being approved in this case.
Debono duly carried out the works, cladding the shop front in marble, but matters soon hit a stumbling block, when it emerged that the cladding encroached on Spiteri’s property next door, beyond what was allowed by the permit.
What’s more, Debono had listed himself as the sole owner of the property when applying for a permit, failing to disclose that the land was owned by the government.
After these breaches emerged, the PA imposed an enforcement notice, months after the works were carried out.
Undeterred, Debono applied to have the already-built works sanctioned, with the case officer finding that the development ran counter to planning regulations.
The sanctioning was initially refused in a November 2016 decision, only for the decision to later be overturned by the Environment and Planning Tribunal, which found that the difference between what was granted in the original permit and the works being sanctioned were “minimal”.
Spiteri refused to take the matter lying down, opening court proceedings to have the permit declared illegal.
Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, who was overseeing the case, agreed, finding that Debono had never obtained permission from the Lands Authority to carry out the works.
The permit was revoked in January 2020 but, as the months crept by, the illegally-built façade remained in place, despite Spiteri’s protestations.
Spiteri once again took to the courts for a remedy, filing proceedings against the Planning Authority in January 2021 calling on it to enforce the court’s initial decision and have the façade removed.
Throughout these new proceedings, PA officials argued that although an enforcement order against the development had been in place since 2016, with daily fines against Debono piling up, direct action such as the façade’s removal is a “last resort”.
The PA is unable to resort to this direct action, PA officials argued, because of a pending civil case between Spiteri and Debono, this time over works in the property’s interior.
Judge Grixti agreed, saying that although the courts had already declared the development illegal, they had not explicitly instructed the removal of the works “at this stage”.
Meanwhile, the marble façade lives to see another day, almost five years after it was declared illegal.