‘Controversial’ Sannat Project Decision Postponed Following Activists Pressure
Malta’s Planning Authority (PA) has postponed a decision on the controversial application to build apartments and garages close to cliffs in Sannat (PA/02087/21).
The hearing took place on Tuesday, virtually, with PA Chairperson Stephania Baldacchino asking the PA’s executive council for guidance on how to interpret relevant policies.
The planning permit proposes a project to build 73 flats and 60 garages. It is one of three applications that will create a block of no less than 125 apartments, just 350 metres away from the cliff’s edge.
Objectors to the project have denoted that the splitting of the project into three separate applications was a means to ‘bypass’ certain regulations governed by the PA.
During the hearing, Baldacchino, alongside board member Anthony Camilleri asked architect Saviour Micallef to submit further drawings to show the heights of the approved buildings on the road, and the heights of the development proposed in the application.
They also called for clarification as to whether the site is facing Outside Development Zone land.
The works currently being carried out in Sannat, by Joseph Portelli, have been reported to the Environment Resources Authority (ERA) and to the PA by pressure group Moviment Graffitti.
“We have just reported illegal works that have taken place, and are still ongoing, in a stretch of fields adjacent to Portelli’s monstrous development in Sannat, just a few metres away from the edge of the Ta’ Ċenċ and Ta’ Sanap cliffs,” Graffitti said in a Facebook post.
The matter was revealed a few days ago by Lovin Malta contributor Victor Paul Borg, who uncovered Joseph Portelli’s structures that have sprouted next to protected seabirds’ nests.
“Near the cliff’s edge, on land that falls in a Natura 2000 protected area, five round structures have sprouted up in the past few months (these were ruined, long-abandoned trapping hides, before construction into the round structures),” he unveiled.
“These illegal works do not appear to be covered by a development permit, and the fact that they have been carried out next to a site earmarked for the highly controversial development of a 125-apartment block surely merits and investigation,” Graffiti said.
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