Demolishing an archaeologically sensitive Marsaxlokk farmhouse was "the lesser of two evils," Superintendent of Cultural Heritage Kurt Farrugia told Times of Malta after machinery was seen demolishing the vernacular structure. 

Footage shot by Marsaxlokk residents on Wednesday shows what appears to be a claw crane tearing through stones and soil in a rural part of the locality on Triq iż-Żejtun. 

Permission was granted to remove “dangerous parts of an existing collapsed building” through a dangerous structures permit, however the permit was issued with the condition that masonry should be numbered and preserved for the eventual reconstruction of the building. 

“All masonry blocks are to be numbered carefully on the hidden sides for both position and orientation. These must be cross-referenced to official scaled drawings to facilitate the eventual reconstruction of the building,” the permit reads. 

“The building is to be carefully dismantled by hand and all the serviceable stonework is to be stored so as to be reintegrated in the eventual reconstruction of the building.”

Superintendence 'mistake'

Farrugia said that these conditions had been “mistakenly” left in the issued permit and that the Superintendence had accepted the demolition of the building. 

“The building was in a very bad state and for it to be rebuilt much of the material would have needed to be new,” Farrugia said. 

“The local plan allows for a schemed road in the area, which would also have required the building to move. Additionally SCH is aware of a very important archaeological site that lies underneath the structure, which it intends to assess in more detail. It was for these reasons that we accepted demolition.” 

“Had we chosen to rebuild the structure, an important archaeological site could have been lost, we chose the lesser of two evils.”

Apartment plans yet to be decided

The application for the demolition was filed by Kurt Cini, who filed a similar application for clearing of dangerous structures last year that was later withdrawn. 

Cini has also filed an application to excavate and develop the same site into apartments, penthouses and garages. The application, first submitted in 2008, lay dormant for some time, with a number of different plans filed for the site between 2016 and 2019. 

According to the Planning Authority's website, the application has yet to be decided and is currently being assessed by a case officer in terms of the Strategic Plan for Environment and Development and other established policies. 

In a submission on that application which it filed last year, the SCH said that while the property is within the development zone, it includes an area of undeveloped land that was currently used for agricultural purposes. Developing it would entail excavation of a large site close to a historic scheduled chapel and within an area of “considerable archaeological potential," it said. 

The Superintendence said that photomontages and visuals submitted as part of the application indicated that the proposed development "will visually dominate the approach to Marsaxlokk" and also noted that documentation submitted as part of the application had made no mention of structures of "evident historical and vernacular value."

In comments to Times of Malta, environmental NGO Flimkien għall-Ambjent Aħjar condemned the demolition and said that the permit should have never been issued. 

"The applicants had not even declared the presence of structures of historical and vernacular value on the site yet in spite of this and the objections of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, the developers were given permission to dismantle it carefully, numbering the stones, a condition that they have flagrantly violated, destroying the historic structure barbarically," an FAA spokesperson said. 

"As FAA has witnessed for years, such conditions attached to permits are no more than eyewash to allow more destruction of Malta's built heritage, because the Planning Authority does not have the resources to monitor and enforce such conditions.

"This case highlights the Planning Authority's complicity in the destruction of Malta's heritage blatantly, as the developers' intentions were clearly revealed in their failure to declare the historic farmhouse on their site."

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