Government-proposed restaurant inside Gzira gardens ‘incongruous and excessive’

The development of a 493sq.m parcel of the Gzira garden for a restaurant, offices, restrooms and other facilities for the yacht marina, will create an “extensive and incongruous volume that denies visual and physical access from the garden towards the sea,” the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage warned.

The development is being proposed in an application presented by Transport Malta in a central part of the Council of Europe Gardens, next to an Enemalta substation and very close to the play area.

A public roof garden is also being proposed on top of the proposed commercial development. 13 trees, including two mature pine trees impacted by the development, will be “transplanted” to other parts of the garden, although previous experience shows that relocating mature pine trees is very difficult.

In its comments on the Transport Malta application, the Superintendence expressed concern on the considerable take-up of land for the development of the restaurant, offices and other facilities inside the long-standing public garden, which “was already indicated as established in plans dating to the Second World War”.

Moreover the location of the proposed development “straddles soil covered areas and paved areas with no evident consideration for any existing formality in the garden”. The application includes facilities not clearly linked to the function of a marina office.

The Superintendence is now calling on the Planning Authority to ensure the protection of the landscape values of the garden, to preserve the “architecturally valid garden space”.

A 25-year concession was awarded by public tender to the Gzira Gardens Marina Consortium in 2018, a project which had attracted 14 bids. But the application for an additional two pontoons presented in 2019 and that of an “operator area” which includes the proposed restaurant, have both been presented by Transport Malta, and not by the concessionaires.

Another part of the garden is expected to be taken up by the relocation of an existing fuel station next to Manoel Island bridge, which will be shifted to the edge of the garden. 

So far over 120 objections have presented against the development.

“COVID has shown us how green open spaces are essential to physical and mental health, yet the situation is worsening by the day as a petrol station is already approved for construction in the garden; additional buildings in this small space will destroy it forever. People need unbuilt open spaces, greenery and clean air in this overdeveloped, over-exploited town,” a Gzira resident said in one of the objections.