The residents of the area have applied for revocation of the permit on the basis of incorrect information in the permit application, errors on the face of the record, and the lack of notice signs that should have been kept up by the developer.

These elements have led to blind-siding the residents and thereby denying them of their rights to make representations in the permit application process.

The residents are demanding that the permit application process be restarted in the legally required form, where residents have the right to make representations within a specified period from having been made aware of the development.

In the application for the permits, the developer points to the general need for elderly care homes on the island. While acknowledging that need, the residents of the area argue that this could also be done in a more thoughtful way, in which the reasonable interests of those living in the area would be taken into account as well, and the development would not cause such detriment to their lives and lifelong savings.

They maintain that instead of a 20m tower in the middle of a one-storey bungalow area, the development could well remain within the elevations of the current Retreat House and with prudent planning could accommodate more than 120 units.

The area was also defined in the 2006 zoning plan to be an area for a “religious retreat”, strictly prohibiting any change of use, therefore such development is going against the local plans.

It will be built in the middle of a neighbourhood of one-storey bungalows in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, ruining the beauty and integrity of the area, and affecting the lives of all that live there.

The project’s applicant is Katari Holdings, which is owned by GAP’s Paul Attard, and its architect is Colin Zammit, who courted controversy after revelations that the government handed out a €700,000 direct order for a project that was never carried out.

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