An apartment block in Xlendi has been allowed to essentially double its existing building height, in what is likely to be a forerunner of the Gozo seaside village's future. 

Pictures sent to Times of Malta this week show that an apartment block on the cul-de-sac in Triq il-Punici has experienced a sudden and dramatic increase in height in recent months, protruding like a splinter in the otherwise uniform streetscape of the area. 

The declared owner of the building, Paul Farrugia, filed a planning application (PA 02069/20) for the extension in 2020, with the Planning Authority granting the permit later that same year. Permit documents indicate that work on the building started in the summer of 2022. 

The permit allowed the applicant to double the building's height, going from a four-floor apartment block to an eight-floor one by adding three more floors and a penthouse at a receded level. 

But like a gangly teen slouching at the children’s table, the awkward addition towering over its peers means that they too could one day grow to reach this height, setting a precedent for even more bland apartment facades to engulf Xlendi Bay. 

This fact did not go unnoticed by the Environmental Resources Authority (ERA) or Superintendence of Cultural Heritage (SCH), which both objected to the development on the basis of its height.

So too did the PA's own design advisory committee, the body responsible for providing the PA with advice about building aesthetics. On October 7, 2020, the DAC warned that the eight-storey building would have an "extremely negative" impact on the Xlendi Valley area of high landscape value. 

The PA nevertheless granted the permit one month later.  

The building in its previous form, in a photo submitted to the PA by the applicant. Photo: PA

In its objection, ERA noted that despite being within the development zone, the site of the building is located directly adjacent to the Kantra Valley, which is a protected Natura 2000 site.

“ERA is concerned that the proposed additional floors over the existing building will intensify the development on site,” the environment watchdog said.

“The additional building height will increase the massing of the building in a way which will negatively affect the visual amenity and landscape value of the area and will also increase shading on the underlying Natura 2000 site.”

The SCH pointed out that the elevated position of the building site would break the uniformity of the built environment in the area and create “unsightly” blank party walls.

“The apartment block forms part of a row of similar blocks of the same height which, while modern, together contribute to a uniformity,” they said.

“Considering the elevated position of the building in question, such an increase in height will result in a massive and unsightly blank party wall on both side elevations which would be visible from the below Xlendi bay as well as disrupt the views from Triq tal-Ghajn.”

They also pointed out that the granting of one permit for this height would pave the way for nearby buildings to do the same.

“Such an increase in height will set a precedent for nearby buildings which will further intensify the abovementioned concerns,” the SCH continued.

The PA's design committee warned about the building's impact on the valley.

“Such a dramatic increase in height of one or more of the buildings in question will result in an encroaching of construction upon the relatively minuscule area of high landscape value below, reducing its aesthetic, environmental and cultural value, as well as significantly altering the views of the low-lying Xlendi Bay from Triq il-Ghajn and its surrounding area of high landscape value.” 

One reader who spoke to Times of Malta said the building was another nail in the coffin of the country’s declining preservation of its built fabric. 

“This extension is literally ugliness on top of ugliness. It sticks out like a sore thumb on the approach to Xlendi. I doubt the Planning Authority could do a better job at the continued uglification of the Maltese Islands if this goal were actually enshrined in its mandate,” they said.

Those concerns did not hold sway with the Planning Authority, however, which noted that the local plan for Gozo allowed buildings in the area to rise to that height.

Blank party walls caused by the development "are considered to be temporary since the site is circa 34m away from the end of scheme development, where an appropriate transition may be carried out," the report noted the PA directorate as arguing.