Transport Malta has withdrawn a controversial application for offices and a restaurant on the Council of Europe Gardens, one of Gzira’s last remaining green lungs.
The planning application had been filed in April, wherein state agency Transport Malta was proposing the “construction of marina office space and storage” in connection with the already approved yacht marina.
The building was to consist of commercial space, public toilet facilities, WC’s and showers, a retail outlet, and a restaurant with an ancillary outdoor area with a public roof garden.
Under the plans, it will be situated in the middle of the garden, bordering on the Gzira coastline along which there is a yacht marina, and right on part of what is a children’s playing area.
The development was set out to take up 500 square meters of the garden, with only 141.1 of those being actually dedicated to the operations of the marina. The retail outlet would have been 12.6 square metres, while the restaurant was to get 162.4 square metres for itself. 8.9 square metres was to be dedicated to the building of public toilets.
The withdrawal of the application was welcomed by NGO Flimkien Ghall-Ambjent Ahjar, who had been amongst its biggest critics earlier in the year and raised some 200 objections from nearby residents against the project, described the proposal as “obscene” and as one which would have deprived children of the only play area in the locality.
They said that the application was “abusive” and went against Malta’s planning regulations, particularly the Strategic Plan for Environment and Development (SPED), which states that “existing recreational resources are to be protected, enhanced and accessible, to facilitate the provision of new recreational facilities to improve social cohesion, human health, air quality and biodiversity.”
FAA called on the Environment Resources Authority to issue a tree protection order for the trees which would have otherwise been destroyed by the application – protected pine trees – and to designate the garden as a tree protection area.