A property owner whose Pieta’ home was dwarfed by an apartment block next door is calling upon the Planning Authority to knock down the block since it was built despite pending appeal proceedings which ultimately annulled the development permit.
Frank Zammit has been waging a legal battle against the neighbouring project that blocked out the sunlight to his home within an urban conservation area.
The owner of the next-door property applied for a permit in 2019 and Zammit registered himself as a third party objector to the proposed development that involved the building of a maisonette with underlying basement and seven overlying flats.
He had complained that the height of the new building would overshadow his home, practically rendering the solar panels on his roof ineffective.
His objections, together with those put forward by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, were dismissed and the Planning Commission greenlighted the project in April 2020.
Zammit took the matter before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal which turned down his appeal in September 2020, prompting another appeal to the Court of Appeal.
In February 2021, that court partly upheld Zammit’s arguments declaring that the Tribunal had wrongly applied the definition of “zone of influence.”
It sent the case back to the Tribunal to be decided afresh.
However months lapsed until the Tribunal appointed the case for hearing and then the proceedings dragged on for months prompting Zammit’s lawyer to file a judicial letter calling out the “exaggerated and inexplicable” delay.
Meanwhile, the three-month suspension of the original development permit had long lapsed, making way for the building works to go ahead.
By the time the Tribunal delivered its decision in March 2022, once again rejecting Zammit’s appeal, the project next door had gone ahead uninterrupted.
Court upholds second appeal
Yet Zammit persevered, filing a second appeal before the courts.
In December, the court of appeal upheld Zammit’s arguments, revoked the Tribunal’s decision and annulled the permit even though, by this time, the development had been completed.
Zammit is now seeking to enforce that final judgment.
Assisted by lawyer Claire Bonello, he has filed a judicial letter against the Planning Authority and the State Advocate calling for the demolition of the next door development since it was built out under a permit that was subsequently annulled.
He argued that the Planning Authority had greenlighted a project that was clearly in breach of planning policies and allowed works to go ahead even when it was well aware of ongoing appeal proceedings.
By means of another judicial letter against the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal and the State Advocate, Zammit claimed that his fundamental rights were breached.
Conflicts of interest
He said he had found out at a later stage that the person chairing the Tribunal, Joseph Borg, as well as another member, Alexander Zammit, were Planning Authority employees on unpaid leave. Presiding over proceedings where the Authority itself was one of the parties meant that the two had a conflict of interest.
Such a state of affairs cast serious doubts upon the independence and impartiality of the Tribunal, thus impinging his right to a fair hearing, he argued.
Moreover, since the law granted a one-time suspension of the permit for three months and since an appeal concerning the suspension could only be filed upon final decision by the Tribunal, objectors found themselves in a disadvantaged position.
While the Tribunal dragged its feet in deciding the case, the suspension of the permit lapsed and the irregular works could go ahead, making it to the finish line before the objector who had no “interim relief” in his attempt to block the development pending final decision.
Such state of affairs rendered the appeal nothing but an “academic exercise,” because the longer the lapse of time, the more difficult it became to revoke the permit.
Since the law did not provide for an automatic suspension of such development permits, Zammit said that objectors like himself suffered prejudice on account of the “procedural, legal and real disadvantage” they had to contend with.
On the contrary, the developer benefited immediately.
Zammit is now calling upon the relative authorities to provide adequate remedies, reserving the right to take further legal action whilst calling upon the Planning Authority to demolish the building that it had irregularly approved.
Lawyer Claire Bonello signed both judicial acts that were filed before the First Hall, Civil Court.