Page 4 - Development Planning Act News Today

On Thursday the €250 million project – to construct a 12 storey hotel and two 17 and 18 storey residential blocks on the site - was approved by four votes to three, in the face of a chorus of opposition from the local council, environmental groups and residents.

Six environmental NGOs have called on the Planning Authority to explain why their representative on the board was advised to recuse herself for the hearing on t

Will developers have a right to ‘compensation’ if planning rules are changed to put a halt to the country’s uglification? A European Court of Justice case has already dealt with the matter

Two-storey buildings located outside urban conservation areas (many of which were built in the 1970s to 1980s era) may be easily pulled down and replaced by multi-storey apartments following a simple planning application. This is possible because the local plans published in 2006 were specifically designed to promote this state of play. In that same epoch, another policy was introduced so that where three allowable floors were allowed, a penthouse floor could also be permitted ‘over and above...

A vote by the Planning Authority approving the demolition of Walmarville, an iconic modernist house in Balzan, was made in an irregular manner and could leave the decision open to appeal, Times of Malta has learnt. The Planning Commission board, with Anthony Camilleri stepping in as chairman in the absence of its actual chairman, Claude Mallia, and attended by member Stephanie Baldacchino, voted in favour of an application to demolish the house to make way for a maisonette and three apartments,...

Last August, I wrote refusing Johann Buttigieg’s testimony that equated developers lobbying for their projects with eNGOs acting against inappropriate project proposals. The revelation that messages allegedly exist between Buttigieg and Yorgen Fenech, which propose joint business projects between them, projects which were still to be approved by the Planning Authority that Buttigieg led, proposes a completely different meaning to the term ‘lobbying’.  These alleged conversations, if they...

The former chairman of the Planning Commission, Simon Saliba, has cried foul over his removal, claiming that the move was illegal. In a judicial protest filed on Thursday against Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia and the Planning Authority, Saliba insisted that his removal was illegal because it did not follow a parliamentary resolution as laid down in the law.  Saliba was removed from his position last November, months after several environmental NGOs called for his removal because he was "...