An application to demolish a disused farm and turn it into a warehouse has been refused by the Planning Authority, in a victory for residents and fireworks enthusiasts in Luqa.
Eleven of the 12 PA board members present for the hearing on Thursday voted against granting the application, while the 12th did not appear to be present for the vote which was taken virtually.
The application, by developer Raymond Zammit and architect Tancred Mifsud, would have seen the demolition of a farm and the construction of a clean industry warehousing complex on two levels, on the Wied il-Kbir site of roughly 10 tumoli of agricultural land.
In his submission, Mifsud said that the built up area in his proposal would not exceed the footprint of already committed land and argued that the current structures were an eyesores and that the proposed warehouse complex would bring about “environmental improvement” to the area through the removal of the shabby buildings in place.
Case officer Manuel De Gabriele highlighted a number of issues with the site in question due to a lack of information on the legality of the structures already on site.
This posed a problem in determining the scale of the already committed footprint and, in turn, the scale for the development proposed, including the need to determine infrastructural requirements, access to site, building height and visual amenity.
He added that the proposal could not be considered favourably as it ran counter to a number of planning policies, as the proposed use of the site is not permissible.
It also failed to incorporate a wider environmental benefits and ran counter to policies in place to protect the uptake of good agricultural land from development.
A number of members of the public, as well as NGO Moviment Graffitti, also made their representations to the board during the sitting, many expressing concern on how the intensification of development in ODZ would further encroach on limited green areas enjoyed by the surrounding localities of Qormi and Luqa.
They noted the negative impact the industrial development would have on people living in the area, including through an increase in emissions, noise pollution, traffic intensity and parking problems.
Members of the Soċjetà Filarmonika Pinto Banda San Sebastjan also raised concerns that the site was close to where fireworks are let off and that development would place restrictions on where these could be held safely due to the commercial uptake of the land.
The Luqa and Qormi councils both objected to the development.