Marsaxlokk deserves a home for the elderly, but not in the shoddy, undignified way it is being proposed in PA/8310/21.

For starters, there are government guidelines in full breach, as well as a worrying civil legal consequence that will impact the residents of Port Ruman for years to come. Then there’s a fifth red flag: building a massive structure inside a natural valley.

The location of the elderly home is right opposite the boatyard, and the football pitch plus hostel at its back, together with a social club, pharmacy, clinics and sports shops.  I have nothing against the boatyard – it’s an essential service in a place like Marsaxlokk. Even I am aware of it, and I’m not a resident there. So what is the logic behind locating an elderly home, of all places, in an area with a combined industrial, commercial and recreational land use? How can this respect the physical, sensory and cognitive impairments of such residents, their dignity, especially those facing their final days?

Imagine having a parent with dementia living there, with possible co-morbidities that require a serene environment, only to be living in pure hell on weekends. Would you waste your pension and your time on such an arrangement? Any individualised care-plan would have to start with that deficit. It’s sheer insanity, whichever way you look at it. The pitch floodlights, on their own, are already a massive nuisance to the existing residents on both sides of the pitch.  Would you imagine a football pitch located right next to St Vincent de Paul Residence making sense, for example?

The first policy to be breached is the Social Care Standard Authority (SCSA) Residential Services for Senior Citizens. Quality Indicator 1 under Standard 5 stipulates that the location must be appropriate for its residents. Performance indicator 1.10 binds the service provider with the requirement to “promote a calm experience” that is also “representative of a domestic environment”.

This is also echoed in standard 10.1, ensuring “dignity and propriety” in the final days of patients, of the National Minimum Standards for Care Homes for Older People issued by the Parliamentary Secretariat for Disability and Active Ageing.

Back in 2015, the proposed Height Limitation Adjustment Policy for Retirement Homes spoke of ensuring that an elderly residence’s location has a “relationship to context” as per criteria 5.1(d), underlining the “need” to “respond positively” to its topography. Criteria (e) further required it to aesthetically “integrate with the urban context”. So how can the submitted design tally with the natural context, which is a valley with a Level 2 Area of Ecological Importance? Isn’t this level of protection one where development is limited to the maintenance of existing structures? Only minor amenities that promote the area’s educational and recreational use are promoted and maintenance is not the same as ‘new development’, even if the location is listed as an Opportunity Area.  

Speaking of the urban context, try driving into Marsaxlokk from the San Lucjan area and you’ll understand what damage a massive development will bring, apart from being an eyesore.  And no, dear developers, it won’t create a landmark building “with an elegant design” – look again at the photomontages, it does not tally with the Marsaxlokk land and seascape.

Speaking of eyesores, in a June 2020 newspaper coverage, the justification behind building the residence centred around the vague need to reduce the impact of the “boatyard clutter”. How shocking is that, to use the elderly as a disposable buffer to solve an unrelated issue?  

One final point: the civil law concept of good neighbourliness – buon vicinato. Planning officers might not be conversed in this, which is seriously worrisome. It concerns the principle that an owner does not have an absolute right to do absolutely anything with the property, without due consideration to the neighbours. There is a level of tolerance to residual nuisance that neighbours are expected to bear, as copious court judgements on the matter have long illustrated. However, consistent noise generation is a serious inconvenience which our Courts have not looked upon benignly, especially if the outcome was foreseeable from the start.  Why doesn’t the case file contend with this very important legal point?

I’m objecting to using the elderly as an excuse, and in such an undignified manner, to render any commercial enterprise plausible. I cannot keep silent on this issue especially since the Elderly are one of my three portfolios as a Marsaxlokk Local Councillor. I’m also the Minority Leader. I might be a newbie on the Council, having only been sworn in on October 27, but it doesn’t diminish my input.

Incidentally, the current application was withdrawn on December 8 according to the Planning minutes available online. Can the PA be accountable and explain whether the current application is being just tweaked or completely withdrawn?