Attard residents fear Roseville elderly home extension

Only Grade 1 buildings are exempted but Grade 2 buildings, which are normally protected from any development except minor alterations, are not. In the case of scheduled buildings the policy “may only apply where such buildings are in a poor state of repair and where they cannot otherwise be easily converted into a retirement home”. 

Since issuing the draft policy in 2015, the PA received a number of submissions from Attard residents, the local council and the owners of Villa Bologna expressing concerns on a possible height extension to Roseville Home, a Grade 2 listed building now run by Nazzareno Vassallo’s Caremalta.

Residents said all the adjacent buildings next to Roseville are two storeys high, and that with two extra storeys, Roseville would be seven storeys above street level as seen from Triq Konti R. Barbaro.

Din l-Art Helwa also warned that the increase in height of Roseville would result in a high building, which would dwarf the boundary walls of Villa Bologna. “An additional two floors would make the building tower over the baroque garden… It will also ruin this part of San Anton Street, home to the facades of Villa Bologna, the President’s Kitchen Garden, San Anton Palace, beautiful early 19th century villas and townhouses and the old building of Roseville itself, which is one of Malta’s finest Art Nouveau buildings.”

215 Mtarfa residents also presented an objection to the new policy due to fears that this will pave the way to the conversion of the Isolation Hospital in Mtarfa, which is earmarked for an old people’s home by Malta Healthcare Caterers, a subsidiary of the Seabank Group, which was the recommended bidder for the hospital after an expression of interest.

Plans submitted to the PA in 2015 already envisioned an extra storey on the Grade 2 building. Part of this site is located within an ODZ area and is located on a ridge overlooking Chadwick Lakes. 

The PA replied that the addition of floors on Grade 2 buildings would be given favourable consideration only in cases where the merits of the case allow it. “The policy does not state that any application to increase the height of Grade 2 buildings will always be allowed”.

The PA also pointed out that approval of such projects will not be automatic. “Impacts on streetscapes would need to be evaluated once an application is submitted,” it said.