More supermarkets: Lidl to replace Coca-Cola bottling plant

The Planning Authority will be considering a rare application proposing a development that is significantly less visually intrusive than what was previously approved.

On 12 September, the Planning Board will meet to decide whether to approve a Lidl supermarket and a car park instead of the already-approved 150 apartments and three showrooms, at the site of the shuttered General Soft Drinks factory in Qormi.

The development is being proposed in a joint application presented by Lidl and the Mizzi group, whose subsidiary is the General Soft Drinks company, now located in Marsa.

The only downside is that the supermarket will be partially fronting a residential area, where supermarkets are only allowed by planning policies if there is “a strong planning justification” for them.

The proposed supermarket will have a frontage on both Mdina Road, which is designated as a commercial area, and on Triq il-Vitorja, which is designated as a residential area.

According to a case officer’s report recommending the development, the proposed elimination of the residential blocks and showrooms, replaced by a low supermarket structure and an open car park, will inevitably have a lesser visual impact on the surroundings while creating less traffic than the approved development.

Transport Malta has also issued its clearance for the development because the expected trip generation will be lower than that of the residential development approved in 2021. According to a traffic impact study, while the supermarket is expected to generate between 120 and 146 car trips in peak hours, the residential development would have generated between 157 and 305 car trips in peak hours.

Originally, the residential project had been approved in 2021 over the 7,558 sq.m site of the former Coca-Cola bottling plant.

According to the project’s architect, the supermarket will have a vehicular entrance from Mdina Road, which will allow smooth entry into the car park. Customer vehicles will only be allowed to exit via Triq il-Vitorja. Unloading vehicles will access the site from Mdina Road, so as not to create any impact on residential amenities.

Moreover, the traffic study concludes that the supermarket will capture traffic that is already on the network and will reduce pressure on the roundabouts at either end of Triq Manuel Dimech as a result of the creation of a more accessible supermarket for customers arriving from the west.

The height of the supermarket will vary from 4.50m to 7.94m, and will mostly face Triq il-Vitorja, while the remaining residential block, consisting of just four apartments, will rise to 17.50m on Triq Alexandra.

Although the Planning Authority’s policy regulating supermarkets states that “all large supermarkets should be subject to a Retail Impact Assessment” to assess their impact on trade in their catchments area, the case officer concluded that such an assessment is “futile considering the site location and the zoning of the area.”

The supermarket will be sited in catchment area roughly midway between Qormi’s Pavi supermarket, and a prospective supermarket at the former SWM Cortis premises in Ħaż-Żebbuġ.

The proposal includes 122 parking spaces in the supermarket’s open car park. The Planning Authority’s parking formula requires one parking space for every 10 sq.m of customer floor space, which in this case amounts to 1,200 sq.m. This means the car park will provide the 120 parking spaces required.

On the other hand, the parking formula requires one parking space for each flat and two for each penthouse. While the open car park satisfies the parking requirement for the supermarket, no parking is being provided for the four residential units on Triq Alexandra. Therefore, a contribution of €23,000 to the Authority’s Urban Improvement Fund is required to make up for the shortfall of these parking spaces.