Fgura: Giant 62-apartment block looms on main road

A massive, five-storey block of 62 apartments is set to introduce a bulky development on Fgura’s Triq Hompesch, rivalling the parish church just 150m away.

Photo-montages from the Vassallo Group show the development, set on a vacant site opposite the Fgura local council and Cross monument, easily becoming the most prominent on the main road, although mitigated by the sheer width of the road that makes higher buildings appear less claustrophobic.

The undeveloped land used to be home what the Fgura council claimed had been the town’s oldest building, originally listed as a building meriting a degree of protection, but later de-listed and demolished.

The project will have four underground storeys of parking for 91 cars, and retail outlets at basement and ground floor level. The block is set to create a blank party wall on the neighbouring row of two-storey buildings. The rest of the main road is also mostly two- and three-houses, but a five-storey block has already been approved at the intersection with Triq Nazzarenu Farrugia, which also fronts the proposed development.

The demolition of the previous Grade 3 farmhouse was approved despite the council’s objection. But the PA imposed a condition to reutilise stone corbels deemed to have heritage value. The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage had a change of heart when it realised that re-using the corbels for the Vassallo project was not feasible and “would constitute a pastiche of elements devoid of any context”. Instead, it demanded a €7,000 ‘cultural heritage gain’ from the developers.

The farmhouse, of minimal protection since 1995, was known to have parts dating over 200 years, but was delisted after the SCH found it to have “limited cultural heritage significance” as a small, “incoherent” complex of buildings and spaces.