The Environment Planning Review Tribunal has revoked a permit for a massive 11-storey hotel in a narrow residential street in Sliema, sending the file back to the Planning Authority to consider a scaled-down proposal.
The application for the 82-suite hotel in Howard Street had originally been recommended for refusal but was overturned at the hearing in January last year after developer Josef Dimech from J&J Holdings signed an agreement that the development in question will be used exclusively as a hotel.
The EPRT upheld arguments made by the Sliema local council and other objectors, including Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar and Sliema residents that the proposed development was in a narrow street and would inevitably lead to an increase in the noise and traffic in a residential area. This would also increase the problem with lack of parking, among others.
The tribunal acknowledged that the street is a narrow one, made up almost entirely of residential units, and expressed concern that it would not be able to withstand the additional traffic.
It said that the hotel would lead to the “proliferation and intensification” of development which is not even compatible with residential uses.
The tribunal also noted that the development of a hotel on the present site is not in any way “neighbour compatible” as required by planning policies.
The development “will have unacceptable cumulative adverse impacts on the locality,” it said.
The tribunal upheld the appeal, revoking the permit and sending it back to the planning stage to consider a scaled down project that conforms with planning policies. It also imposed that a transport management plan be presented as part of a future application.
In a separate appeal, also filed by the Sliema council, the tribunal revoked a permit for a kiosk on Qui-si-Sana seafront given that was proposed in a residential area. The tribunal also found that the planning commission had failed to note the council’s objections, which were even ignored in the case officer’s report.
The tribunal called on the Planning Authority to instruct its case officer to include councils’ objections in their report.
Lawyers Claire Bonello and Ian Vella Galea and councillor Paul Radmilli represented the council before the EPRT.