PA appeals tribunal reverses decision that twice refused illegal Dwejra boathouse

The Planning Authority’s Environment and Planning Review Tribunal (EPRT) has reversed a decision by the Planning board in 2015 not to regularise a boathouse in Dwejra in Gozo.

The application to regularise the boathouse was twice refused in 2010 by the Planning Authority’s highest board, then chaired by Austin Walker. 

Subsequently the application was assessed in terms of the new rural policy enacted in 2014 but was still refused by the Planning Board chaired by Vince Cassar.

In its decision the planning board insisted that “this development is not suitable for an area of high scenic value and ecological protection and that “the refusal is in the public interest”. 

In its final decision which approved the boathouse, the Appeals tribunal imposed a €2,329.37 fine on the boathouse owner. The tribunal justified regularising the boathouse by arguing that the Dwejra Action Plan approved in November 2005 envisioned the regularisation. It also argued that the PA couldn’t refuse permits on the basis of the “public interest”.

In his appeal boathouse owner Carmelo Sultana pointed out the contradictory decisions taken by previous PA boards with regard to the boathouses in Dwejra.  While the Planning Authority approved a batch of boathouses on the eve of the 2008 general election, another batch was refused two years later by a different board.

“There is in fact no doubt that this particular refusal is clearly inconsistent when one considers that MEPA has granted some other 40 exactly similar proposals within the same area. If my client was to abide by this refusal, he will have to demolish the boathouse. Ironically the adjacent boathouse was approved”.

The Dwejra boathouse saga

47 of the 68 boathouses in Dwejra were built illegally after 1968. In 2005, the Nationalist administration issued an action plan to regularise any illegal boathouse filing for a permit before 2006. Just days before the 2008 elections, MEPA regularised 20 boathouses in the highly sensitive and protected area, a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status. But then in 2010 and 2011, under the stewardship of chairman Austin Walker, the MEPA board rejected 17 similar applications to sanction those boathouses, which had not been regularised in 2008. 

During the meeting, Walker underlined that a line had to be drawn on sanctioning illegal structures in outside development zones (ODZ), deciding that refusing the applications was in the “public interest and proper planning”.

The owners appealed to the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, insisting that the boathouses be sanctioned according to the 2005 action plan. 

In March, 2014, one of the EPRT’s panels – whose members were appointed by the newly-elected Labour administration – concluded that MEPA could not declare that the proposal runs counter to “public interest and proper planning” without providing supporting arguments. 

But a month later in April 2014, another EPRT panel – this time, with members appointed by the previous administration – turned down an appeal on one of the rejected boathouse permits, saying that MEPA cannot sanction any development in designated protected areas. 

Then came a new policy regulating development inside ODZs, and the EPRT once again passed the buck to the MEPA board, requesting it to decide on whether the 2010-2011 cases of rejected boathouses could be approved under this new policy.

In February 2015 the PA board decided that the new rural policy did not apply to these four cases and rejected them for the third time because these were located in an Area of Ecological and Scientific Importance. 

But the PA has not withdrawn the 2005 action plan, which is still invoked to give legitimacy to the boathouses approved in 2008 even if these are in clear breach of other MEPA policies against development in highly protected areas.