A company part-owned by construction magnate Joseph Portelli has applied to sanction two swimming pools which were illegally built on ODZ land in Qala.

Excel Investments Ltd, which is part owned by Portelli and his business partner Mark Agius, want the Planning Authority to sanction two huge swimming pools which they built illegally next to their own apartment block along Triq ta’ Kassja and Triq il-Wardina in the Gozitan village of Qala.

The pools – one of which measures 414 square metres and the other which measures 267 square metres – are currently subject to a planning enforcement notice issued by the PA after a court declared that the pools were built illegally.

They form part of a complex of 164 apartments which was built courtesy of the approval of three different planning applications presented in 2019.  The pools themselves were approved during the 2022 general election campaign – despite the case officer recommending that the application be refused, and despite Portelli’s company already having excavated the land for the pool without a permit.

The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal had confirmed the approval, but an Appeals Court last March declared the permit null after Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti ruled that the pools were approved in breach of existing policies which pertain to the site in question.

The appeal against the permit had been fronted by Moviment Graffitti and the Qala local council.

The pools however remained in place, and Moviment Graffitti activists descended on the site at the end of last June and spray painted the word ‘illegal’ on the bottom of one of the pools.  Police officers arrived on the scene and ordered the activists to leave, prompting them to question why officers hadn’t taken similar action when the pool was built illegally.

Portelli had brushed off the protest, simply saying: “These people have nothing better to do.”

The application to sanction the pools will suspend the Planning Authority’s enforcement action until it is decided upon.

Site photos uploaded by the applicant show that the pools have now been filled with water, and appear ready for use – irrespective of the fact that they are not covered by any permits.