PA wants ‘traditional’ makeover of Għargħur five-storey blocks

The Planning Authority’s planning commission has recommended a makeover of three, new five-storey apartment blocks just metres off the Għargħur church, instead of outrightly refusing the applications. 

With the blocks touching on the village’s urban conservation area, the planning commission instructed architects to amend plans by changing the design of windows and introducing “traditional motifs” to “harmonise” the massive blocks in the UCA. 

All three applications were recommended for refusal by the PA’s case officer due to the lack of an adequate transition towards the UCA. The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage also insisted that this transition could only be achieved through a lessoning of the overall height. 

In its objection, the SCH made it clear that to further engage with this application. It required not only “adequate terracing from the UCA” but also “a significant reduction in overall height of the proposed development”. 

Moreover, design guidelines issued in 2015 make it clear that when development is sited immediately adjacent to an UCA, it should not be higher than the height of the predominant buildings in the area, “not to visually dominate the streetscape or other spaces within the UCA”. 

But in a meeting held last week, the PA’s planning comnission deferred the decision by a month after instructing developers to redesign the buildings by introducing setbacks, incorporating “traditional motifs,” and converting the squared window openings on the back elevation facing an internal garden, into arched ones. 

The commission also called for more photomontages taken from the valley to assess views of the Għargħur Church. 

A presentation submitted by the developers before last week’s meeting includes a number of visuals of the proposed development including one of the back elevation facing the church, where the PA wants arched windows instead of the proposed squared ones.