Hotel owner wants old farmhouse moved to ODZ

The owners of an approved hotel in a rural hamlet along Triq Marsalforn, Xaghra, Gozo, are seeking to relocate a farmhouse from the hotel site to an ODZ plot a short distance away in Zebbug.

Alfred Refalo has filed an application to relocate the farmhouse to a new site “while preserving all its original features and construction elements.”

Refalo had originally applied to demolish the farmhouse to make way for the proposed hotel, which was approved in 2019. However, during the application process, the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage strongly objected to the demolition, insisting that the building should be integrated into the proposed project.

Subsequently, the Planning Commission asked the developer to dismantle and reconstruct part of the existing farmhouse within the boundaries of the same site, in a different position, as outlined in a restoration method statement presented in 2018.

According to the restoration method statement, the existing stone slabs and arches were to be numbered, marked in place, carefully dismantled, and stored in a safe location—one at a time—to ensure ease of reconstruction.

The 58-room, four-storey hotel, including the reconstruction of the farmhouse on the same site, was approved in 2019 despite objections from the Environment and Resources Authority and a recommendation for refusal by the case officer.

Although the hotel, which is under construction, will be partly located in a designated rural hamlet, its footprint will extend into the neighbouring countryside, overlooking the valley between Marsalforn and Xaghra.

Moreover, hotels are not listed among the types of development allowed in rural hamlets in the Gozo Local Plan.

Now, five years after the original approval, Refalo is proposing to relocate the farmhouse to an ODZ site in Zebbug, 80 metres from its original location, raising concerns about further urban sprawl.

The site where the proposed relocation is planned does not contain any built-up structures and consists entirely of natural land.