Decade-long Balzan flats planning battle set to culminate

A decade-long planning battle stemming from a “mistake” by the Planning Authority will culminate on Thursday when an appeals tribunal holds its final hearing on a five-storey apartment block in a villa area of Balzan. Residents are appealing a permit for the flats on the corner of Triq San Franġisk and Triq San Gabriel, which, they say, are totally out of proportion with the surrounding two-storey villas and incompatible with the local context. Moreover, the residents claim that since the permit was issued in 2012, the developer went on to illegally add a penthouse, which was specifically prohibited by the permit conditions. The issue is attributed to a mistake when an application was first submitted in 2004, with the area wrongly zoned as a terraced house area instead of a villa area. The mistake, investigated and confirmed by the Planning Authority’s audit office and the Ombudsman, was caused by the “misinterpretation” of central local plans due to faded watercolours on the temporary provision schemes in which the area was labelled as a villa area. The Ombudsman at the time advised the then Malta Environment and Planning Authority that neighbours should not suffer for its...