Hotel. Goat farm. Now Kalanka owner wants shop

An agricultural entrepreneur setting up an agri-tourism project in Delimara is requesting the green light for a small 15sq.m shop in the Kalanka rural enclave.

After getting a permit for a hotel, a massive boundary wall, a goat farm, greenhouses and a large store, the Environment and Resources Authority denounced the new proposal by Noel Abela as another example of piecemeal development in a protected area.

The small retail shop will sell the produce from on-site agricultural activities.

The ERA noted that the site has been subject to “a number of piecemeal planning commitments” over the years, including permission to relocate agricultural stores, the construction of greenhouses and a breeding farm, and the construction of reservoirs.

The ERA warned of the spillover impact of this piecemeal accumulation of permits, which would increase pressure on surrounding lands by more demands for parking or further “extension, diversification and enlargement of the existing development” once the use becomes firmly entrenched on site.

Increased traffic and demands for infrastructural upgrading often catalyse similar changes in the surrounding lands, and the ERA said there was no justification for further loss of rural land to accommodate a commercial use within the area.

Over the last five years, the Planning Authority approved four other applications presented by Abela to sanction rural structures previously used by bird trappers, then a permit to “consolidate” a series of old structures into a brand new 62sq.m agricultural store, and greenhouses on some 735sq.m of land. Again the ERA had objected to this “piecemeal approach” on an area scheduled for its landscape value.

The PA’s planning commission also approved a 230sq.m goat farm to house the Maltese goat once eradicated in Malta after the brucellosis epidemic, and which Abela wants to reintroduce from Sicily. In 2017 the PA approved a 1.8m-high wall to “demarcate” Abela’s hotel from the adjacent rural path. In 2018 it approved the redevelopment of the former ‘Delimara Bay Hotel’ into an ecological boutique hotel of 17 suites.

On his part Abela has always insisted that his aim was to restore agricultural activity to what was previously a no-go area occupied by squatters who used it for hunting and trapping activities.