Planning Authority defers decision on Strait Street platform

The Planning Authority has given the owner of an obtrusive platform bridging over Strait Street in Valletta a month to come with an alternative proposal.

The developer will have to come up with a structure that is only erected whenever a performance is held and is removed afterwards.  

The platform was used for cultural activities and had to be removed on 31 January 2019 after the termination of the V18 events. Developer Andrei Imbroll’s VBL Limited wanted to make the platform permanent.

Faced with a majority of board members objecting to the regularisation of the illegality, the developer accepted board chairman Vince Cassar’s offer to consider a proposal made by a number of members which would see the structure erected only on a temporary basis when events are held.  

The floating platform which directly faces the back of the Convent of St Catherine, an early eighteenth-century Grade 1 scheduled building, was approved as a theatre stage to be used for during the Valletta 2018 events. It was never removed. 

The case officer was recommending the refusal of the application warning of its “unacceptable visual impact on one of the most iconic streetscapes in Valletta”. He also warned that the retention of these fixtures would set a precedent for further similar intrusive and inappropriate structures not only in Strait Street, but in various other locations within the capital and other localities.  

Imbroll argued that the platform added a cultural dimension to Strait Street, providing a venue for 73 artistic performances over the past year and formed part of a regeneration project.

Imbroll insisted that the concept was vital to the Strait Street brand. He also pointed out that there was no intention to put chairs and tables on the platform.  He even suggested that removing the platform will contribute to turn Strait Street into another Paceville.

“The rest of Strait Street is full of rubbish and rubble.  This is the only part of Strait Street which is harmonious,” he said. 

The architect also insisted that the structure is reversible and can be removed any time.

He also cited the consent of the Lands Department for the encroachment and the support of the Valletta Cultural Agency (VCA) chaired by Jason Micallef and the Valletta local council, a claim which has been subsequently denied by Valletta mayor Alfred Zammit. 

Board member Gilmour Camilleri expressed his bafflement at why the structure was not removed after the end of the V18 events and questioned the legal basis of regularising a structure which should have already been removed.  

Board member Duncan Mifsud also questioned the logic of turning something approved to be temporary into a permanent one, and proposed that the structure is only mounted during performances and removed afterwards.  

Board Chairman Vince Cassar agreed with this proposal insisting that the stage is removed during mornings and only erected during evening performances.  ERA chairman Victor Axiak called on the developer not to be rigid and consider other solutions like erecting the stage only when performances are held.

Resident Reuben Grima, an archaeologist, saluted the developer for the rehabilitation of the building but could not even believe that the PA was discussing such an application and expressed his outrage at the local council’s support for the project.

“The fact that we are even discussing a building which should have been removed after V18 ridicules the planning process.  We cannot accept the principle that what was intended to be temporary becomes permanent,” he said.  

The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage objected to the attempt to make the structure a permanent one.