Din l- Art Helwa today questioned the very mission of the Planning Authority in the light of the hasty approval of the 32 storey Mercury House Tower. The approval of this gigantic development, rushed through in four weeks, and in the absence of a master plan for Paceville, clearly indicates that the Planning Authority is rubber stamping the approval of tower blocks without any serious consideration of the repercussions they will have onthe needs of the community in the area and any other future development in the area.
At 32 storeyss, this tall building is completely out of scale with the urban topography and the visual impact upon our entire country is the most significant in the entire history of development of Malta and Gozo, DLH said. It will result in unprecedented visual impact, very high density and it will have an extreme negative effect upon the entire infrastructure of the area not to speak of the daily visual intrusion on the neighbouring residential communities of Swieqi, St Julians, Madliena and Pembroke and disruption of their quality of life. The price of this is paid by the community and the tax payer and not by the developer.
DLH also noted that in the case of the Mercury Tower application (PA 06955/17), the project was published on the 20th December 2017. Its DPA report was endorsed by the 12 January 2018 with a hearing set for the 25 January 2018 and then given approval. Din l-Art Helwa questions how the Planning Authority and all the bodies that should have been consulted for this project could have carried out the required studies in less than a month.
DLH deplores the current permissive culture of the Planning Authority and insists that Master Plans for all high rise areas are produced before permits are issued. The country is being shamefully destroyed by a few developers for their own personal gain, says the heritage NGO, and the authorities are failing to protect the needs of the citizens of this country and those of its future generations.