It used to be, a long time ago, an orphanage. Lately, it was, or is, a youth hostel.

Although the descriptions one finds are not too favourable. Here is one from Petit.Fute.uk.com:  "This hostel affiliated to the NSTS is located at the top of the coast, when you come from the port and you go to Victoria, near a stop of bus 25. It is a rather unusual place. When you open the gate, you will feel yourself in hacienda, with a charming inner courtyard. It is actually an old religious orphanage. The holy pictures abound in the pretty heavy stone lobby. The cuisine is large, you can enjoy beautiful sea views, you can even play billiards. The 17 rooms in a dormitory are however a bit sad, but you will have no trouble finding a bed there. It certainly cheap and is held, but not very well-located well and not really warm. To see if the atmosphere of the place suits you."

The orphanage/youth hostel in question is Casa San Giuseppe, which all those who visit Gozo know and see as soon as they get out of the Mgarr maelstrom.

The Mepa board today approved changing this from a youth hostel to an old people's home. But the discussion was not as simple as that: noting at Mepa is ever simple.

The developer, Joseph Portelli, who is not the owner of the site, proposed to take the building, retain the historical part, which used to the house of the Bailiff of Chambray, remove all the accretions of the past, and build a 70-room old people's home. There is so far no old people's home in Gozo that can take couples: men have to stay on one side and women on the other. This will be the first old people's home that can take couples and keep them together.

The issue with Mepa, which exercised the board for quite some time, regarded the location. The location is described as ridge edge and there are clear and specific Mepa rules about building on ridge edge. Gozo, with its many valleys, is an ideal place to have ridge edges and the way things are going, this will keep architects and planners exercised for the years to come.

The building there is today goes over the line in some places and parts of it are ODZ. The developer planned to limit development in some places but then wanted to include part of ODZ in a sort of trade-off. His reason, explained by Architect Angelo Portelli, was that this was necessary  to get a better planned and aesthetically-pleasing building.

So the dining room would be at basement level looking out on the valley and green area, while parking at the back had to be restricted as a result.

Board members Prof. Victor Axiaq and MP Ryan Callus argued that while the concept of an old people's home is ideal, allowing a developer to cross over to ODZ would set a bad precedent, even if it was cloaked in reasoned arguments. On the other hand, it was pointed out the whole argument was about just 5 metres of land.

After the board had unanimously voted in favour of the application, Mr Callus moved to include a restraint in the permit which stated this was a one-off permit and could not be used as a precedent. But then the board, somewhat late in the day, realised the developer was not the owner so the constraint would be without effect if placed on him.

The land in question is partly owned by the church and partly by the government and it was not clear at the hearing which part was in ODZ.