Joseph Portelli applies to demolish Birkirkara GO exchange building

Excel Limited, a company owned by construction magnate Joseph Portelli, has submitted an application to demolish the GO exchange building in Birkirkara and excavate two basement levels.

The application comes in the wake of a zoning application envisaging a public, pedestrianised piazza and a new access from Psaila Street for ambulances and fire vehicles, which will bisect the site and enable development around it.

But so far, no application has been presented for a replacement building, raising the prospect that any future development will be proposed after the site is already excavated and reduced to a crater.   

Development applications normally foresee both the demolition and the replacement building but no planning rules preclude the practice of splitting an application in two, with demolition preceding a full development application.

In January the Planning Authority approved an application to demolish a building in Xlendi, on a site earmarked for the development of a massive 13-storey by develop-er Joe Portelli.  On that occasion the PA’s planning commission chairman Claude Mallia insisted that the approval of the demolition did not entail a commitment on the future of the site.

The 3,628sq.m site is just 372sq.m short from qualifying for the floor area ratio mechanism, which would enable an 8 or 9-floor development in the middle of Birkirkara.

Existing planning policies limit development on the site to five floors (17.5m high) in an area mostly characterized by two or three-storey developments.

Both the zoning application and the application to demolish the building refer to fu-ture “mixed residential and retail” development.

Both applications have been submitted by architect Maria Schembri Grima, who was appointed chairman of the Building and Construction Authority in April 2021.

The site occupied by the GO exchange building fronts Psaila Street and two other residential roads in the vicinity of the local secondary school, and does not enjoy any level of protection apart from being outside the historical core of the locality.

Residents who spoke to MaltaToday acknowledge that the site is developable but are concerned that the application is being split in stages, in a way that it is not yet clear as to what kind of development is being proposed.

As stated in the two applications presented so far, the site is still not owned by Portelli’s company.