A planning application has been filed with the Planning Authority to turn a townhouse and its adjoining garden in the Gozitan village of Qala into a six-storey block of apartments, in the latest scaled-up development application to hit Gozo's villages.

The site currently consists of a traditional townhouse with an adjoining area of garden land and an animal enclosure, for a total site area of an impressive 1,542 square metres, and is situated along three streets - Triq iz-Zewwieqa, Triq il-Belveder, and Triq Federico Barocci.

The applicant, Simon Galea, is proposing the "demolition of existing buildings, uprooting of vegetation, excavation, and construction of 2 basement levels, 38 garages, 6 maisonettes, 36 apartments and overlying 6 receded units."

Plans submitted to the Planning Authority show that the proposed building will take over the whole site and rise a total of six storeys, with the sixth of those being a receded floor. 

The plans, drafted by JG Periti, show a building finished with a mix of light brown rendering, masonry block-work, and white aluminium apertures.

The proposed development would tower over the streets it is in, with most of the buildings in the area rising to a maximum of two storeys with a receded floor above.

The building is situated right on the border of the locality's Urban Conservation Area: an area which starts on the other side of the road from this building. It is within the development zone, but, according to the PA's map server, it is in a design priority area.

The proposed development is still in its infancy stage at the Planning Authority, with a number of entities still to submit their consultations on the project, but it is one of many developments of a scale incongruent to the characteristics of Gozitan villages which have cropped up all across the island.

Qala itself has already been affected by such developments, with Gozitan property magnate Joseph Portelli behind a mammoth development in an area known as Ta' Kassja consisting of 164 apartments.

The development was controversial, particularly as it was split into three separate applications in order to avoid environmental scrutiny during the application phase, and also because Portelli elected to start excavating ODZ land adjacent to the property in order to build a pool for which he had no permits.  The illegal works were stopped by the PA when an NGO reported them, but continued soon after, despite there still being no permits.

The most recent piece of controversy over Gozitan developments also involved Portelli and, this time, the village of Sannat.

Earlier this week, the Planning Commission approved an application to add 73 apartments to a block of 125 apartments.  This came after the application was initially recommended for refusal because it breached a number of planning policies, but that recommendation was overturned after the Commission strangely asked the PA's Executive Council to review the application, even though that same council has nothing to do with reviewing these applications.

The move prompted environmental NGOs to accuse the authorities of "rolling out the red carpet" for Portelli and his partners.  The application was in fact approved earlier this week.

It later emerged that Prime Minister Robert Abela was the "guest of honour" at a dinner organised by Portelli just a week before the mega development was approved.

Abela on Monday confirmed that he had met with the contractors, "just like I meet with sections of the Gozitan business community every Saturday," but he categorically denied that he or any of those accompanying him had taken any donations. He also denied that he had discussed planning permits during the dinner.

A number of Gozitan local council mayors, with Qala mayor Paul Buttigieg and Xaghra mayor Christian Zammit - who both hail from the Labour Party - being amongst the most vociferous, have come together in past months to speak out against the level and scale of development that has taken over Gozo in recent years, and called on the government and the Planning Authority to offer better protection to Gozo and its unique characteristics - protection which, thus far, has failed to materialise.