The Franciscan friars are set to pocket some €30 million over 65 years from a deal with a developer to turn a Coast Road retreat house in Madliena into a six-storey home for the elderly, Times of Malta has learnt.

The deal, which is yet to be signed, will see the two-storey Porziuncola Retreat House demolished and replaced with a 200-room care home spread.

The Franciscan order, which operates independently from the Archdiocese of Malta, entered into talks with Katari Holdings owner Paul Attard to grant him the building and surrounding land on emphyteusis for 65 years, with the order receiving an amount every year. At the end of the term, the order would have pocketed €30 million.

The projected home for the elderly on the same site.

The Planning Authority has already granted Attard a permit to develop the care home in an application that went completely under the radar.

The permit application was even missed by Madliena residents and those residing in neighbouring properties.

The development involves the demolition of the building and reconstruction of a new facility on the existing built-up footprint.

In November 2017, the Franciscans were issued with a planning permit to build a third floor to accommodate ageing friars, pushing the existing rooms up by 20 to 53.

Under the permit granted to Attard in December last year, the new home for the elderly will have a total of 380 beds in 200 rooms.

The project includes a chapel, a garden, doctors’ offices, therapeutic facilities and consultation rooms. The plan is to have 40 rooms per floor with a service area on the topmost sixth floor.

The site has a total area of just over 7,500 square metres.

The Environment and Resources Authority deemed that no environment impact assessment or a nature permit was required while the Naxxar council objected to its height.

Writing in today’s Times of Malta, the order’s former minister provincial, Fr Richard Stanley Grech, who had applied for the 2017 permit, completely disassociated himself from the present project, insisting that this was not being done in his name.

He said friars had taken a vow to embrace a life of poverty and simplicity and to uphold the Franciscan values of justice, peace and integrity of creation.

Fr Grech’s successor, Fr Anthony Chircop, told Times of Malta when contacted yesterday that the retirement home project had been given the go-ahead by the order’s heads in Rome and was due to receive the final go-ahead from the Vatican.

He said that when he took over the order, he dropped plans to turn the third floor of the retreat house into a retirement home for elderly friars. Instead, the order looked into granting the building to someone for a period of time.

He said the deal with Attard, which he confirmed had not yet been signed, will see the land granted for 65 years. He could not confirm the €30 million figure as he could not remember specifics.

He said the land would be given against certain conditions, one of which is that the new development covers the same footprint and does not rise much higher than the permitted third floor.

He said the developer was proposing to excavate to keep the new building as low as possible. The height as proposed was “acceptable”, Fr Chircop added.

Meanwhile, Madliena residents have engaged lawyer Claire Bonello and she is in the process of filing a request for the permit to be revoked.

The residents insist that the application went unnoticed because the permit notice was not affixed in a place where it could easily be seen.

They believe the 20-metre-high structure will dwarf the surrounding one-storey bungalows, ruining the beauty and integrity of the area.

According to a 2006 zoning plan, the site is defined as one for “religious retreat” and prohibits any change of use.

A place of contemplation

Porziuncola Retreat House was founded in 1957.

The Franciscan Province says it was the first of its kind on the island and was named after the chapel where Francis of Assisi discovered his evangelical calling in 1208.

The retreat house, which was refurbished in 1994, has ample grounds overlooking the sea, “an oasis for prayer and contemplation”.