St Julian’s: Four-storey rise on Sacred Heart Avenue raises alarm

An application to demolish Casa Rohan and Casa Cottoner, two British colonial style terraced houses in Sacred Heart Avenue in St Julian’s, has been submitted by Justin Zammit Tabona, who runs the Xara Palace boutique hotel in Mdina.

The application foresees the retention of the townhouses’ façades and the addition of four new overlying storeys.

As proposed the development will include 17 apartments, pools at ground floor and at roof level, a roof garden and three parking levels for 36 cars.

Residents fear the approval of this application will set in motion a ‘domino effect’ that would impact upon three other outstanding colonial houses located in the same street.

The five townhouses are typical of British colonial architecture dating to the 1920s and 1930 and are characterised by colonnaded porches, similar to a row of houses at Gwardamangia Hill in Pietà, which houses were scheduled as Grade 2. The back gardens of the houses include a number of mature trees and constitute a green enclave.

Although rejected by the Planning Authority in 2012 due to the “excessive” nature of the development resulting in the “over-development of the site”, this decision was twice overturned by an Appeals tribunal in 2012 and 2018.

The law courts revoked the first decision of the Appeals tribunal, allowing the development subject to a number of conditions two years later.

Subsequently, in May 2018 the PA’s Environment and Planning Review Tribunal issued new guidelines for development on this site.

These conditions included the retention of the existing façade and building alignment, a design which respects the architectural features of the existing façade and that the building depth for all levels, including the basement level, shall not extend more than 25 metres from the road alignment.

The development was also limited to four floors and an underlying basement above road level.