Former magistrate Carol Peralta has dropped plans for a 118-room hotel on a site outside the development zone in Mellieħa, much to the relief of residents, eNGOs and objectors.
The proposed project was slated for refusal by the Planning Authority after the case officer recommended it be rejected because it ran counter to several of its policies. However, Peralta withdrew the application before it had even reached the PA board for discussion.
Filed in 2019, Peralta had requested permission to excavate the site adjacent to the Omm il-Ħniena cemetery, opposite the Luna Hotel. He planned an underground parking complex for 38 cars, a three-star apart-hotel and ancillary facilities over six floors as well as four retail spaces, a restaurant and two bars, a gym area and two pools.
A similar, albeit smaller, application for an apart-hotel filed by the same magistrate in 2008, when he was a sitting magistrate, had also been dropped prior to reaching permitting stage.
Filed by his architect, former Labour MP Charles Buhagiar, the plans bear the name of Joseph Gaffarena as the client. These were then superseded by ones with Peralta’s name as the client.
Covering an area of almost 5,700 square metres, the project would have replaced agricultural land that was still being tilled. With a frontage of 118 metres, the land in question was on Triq il-Marfa, considered as “an important, heavily trafficked thoroughfare with an elevated design speed due to its geometry and nature as Mellieħa’s primary backbone”.
The application attracted over 300 objections, many of whom argued that no development should be permitted in ODZ and that the proposal would generate additional traffic without adequate parking facilities being offered.
Apart from the obvious negative visual impact on Mellieħa, the project would disrupt the ecological environment present in the area, the objectors said.
Among them were Nationalist MP and former Mellieħa mayor Robert Cutajar and Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo, a former Mellieħa councillor, who expressed themselves against this development due to its location on ODZ land.
The proposal was recommended for refusal since it ran counter to a number of policies and provisions of the local plan.
The Mellieħa council strongly objected to the project, holding that valleys should be protected and that ODZ areas “should not be considered for development under any circumstance”.
The Environment and Resources Authority also objected, saying the proposal was “neither justified nor acceptable from an environmental point of view”.