The Church has won back land in Balluta on which a developer had proposed a car park, after a judge upheld arguments that a commercial sub-lease by the Carmelite Order in 2011 was in breach of the donation of the land way back in 1890.
Mr Justice Grazio Mercieca ruled that the land through which the Church was donated an adjacent convent and a sizeable garden on Tower Road, Sliema specified it could only be used for religious reasons.
He was ruling on a court case filed by Archbishop Charles Scicluna against the Carmelite Order in 2015 after it emerged that the lessee, John Cilia, was granted a permit for an underground car park in the Balluta convent grounds. The permit had sparked an uproar.
The court heard how the order’s heads, Fr Alexander Vella and Fr Charles Mallia, had entered into a private agreement with Cilia in October 2011 with which they gave the convent grounds as a concession for 50 years for commercial reasons.
In March 2017, the Planning Authority turned down a controversial commercial development consisting of retail outlets and office development on a proposed first floor. The proposal also foresaw an underground car park for 84 spaces on the same site.
Cilia did not give up and subsequently filed a new application, this time proposing a four-level car park for 115 cars. Plans filed with the application proposed the relocation of the existing statue of the Virgin Mary in the garden as well as 11 olive trees and two palm trees. According to the plan, these were to be relocated to the car park’s roof, which would be turned into a garden.
The site, covering an area of almost 800 square metres, lies behind the Carmelite convent, which is scheduled as a Grade 2 protected building and is also situated behind the Carmelite parish church dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, scheduled as Grade 1.
The court was told that the land in question was donated to the Carmelite Order through a contract signed in February 1890 on condition that it was not sold to third parties without the consent of the confraternity Veneranda Solidalità della Beata Vergine Del Carmelo della Vallettà.
The archbishop, through the administrator of ecclesiastical entities, argued that this agreement was in breach of the original donation of the land to the Carmelite Order, which precluded the transfer of land to third parties.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Mercieca said there was no doubt that the private agreement with Cilia granted him a concession for the land in question and he was allowed to transfer this title to third parties, as he did when he teamed up with a developer to file the planning applications. He also had the right of first refusal once the 50 years were up.
He noted that, according to the 1890 donation contract, done in the Italian language, the recipients were not to transfer the land and that the land was used to be used for spiritual purposes.
In this case, the concession for commercial reasons did not fall under spiritual parameters and neither could it have been done as it was diametrically opposed to the condition with which the land was donated in the first place.
He, therefore, ruled that the concession was null and void since it breached the original donation contract and ordered Cilia to evict the land within a month.