Work has started on a controversial residential and commercial development in the parking area of the former Naxxar trade fair grounds after the Environment and Review Tribunal turned down a request for the permit suspension until the appeal is heard and decided.
Appeals board chairman Robert Sarsero and members Andre Borg and Alexander Zammit rejected claims that Naxxar residents would suffer irreparable harm if the permit is not suspended until the appeal is heard.
Workers from Polidano Group have cordoned off the area with large concrete blocks, erected mobile offices and started excavation work. The hoarding around the project has prevented cars from passing through the trade fair grounds and into Charles Miceli street.
Approved in December, the project is to be built on the parking lot of the former trade fair grounds in Naxxar. It is split into two elliptical blocks measuring eight and 10 floors high and will have a public open space between the two buildings.
Spearheaded by San Pawl tat-Tarġa Investments Ltd, the project includes 136 residential units and penthouses, as well as shops, restaurants and other commercial outlets.
The objectors are arguing the project will have a detrimental visual impact on the Naxxar skyline as well as non-observance of several provisions of the floor area ratio policy guidelines and the unsuitability of the site for medium-rise buildings in an area surrounded by buildings lower than four floors.
The appellants said they had “grave concerns” about the impartiality of the mayor, Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami, saying she had voted in favour despite the local council having previously stated it was opposed to the height of the buildings.
Muscat Fenech Adami, they said, is the company secretary of Chalet Bulgari Ltd, of which the project’s architect, Edwin Mintoff, is a director and shareholder. She is also CEO of Veduta Estates Ltd, a company that owns 14 per cent of Chalet Bulgari Ltd.
Muscat Fenech Adami denies any wrongdoing or any conflict of interest. She is facing an ethics probe by the Nationalist Party, which had instructed her to vote against the project and then demanded her resignation after the vote.
The appeal was filed before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal by Din l-Art Ħelwa, Għaqda Kulturali Wirt Naxxari, Nationalist councillor Joseph Spiteri and several residents.
Din l-Art Ħelwa demanded the recusal of the tribunal chairman given that it had a pending appeal against a project where he is the architect. But Sarsero saw no conflict of interest and refused to recuse himself.