Australia Hall: Developers could pitch for eight-storey development

A.H. Developments, which bought the land and the historic building for just €582,343, wants to change planning rules to accommodate its plans for eight-floor mixed-use development, a combination of retail and residential development. 

The company is proposing “terraced development” at a height of 17.5 metres, or four floors (a ground floor and three overlying storeys), in the area around the protected building.

But the company’s planning control application also foresees the use of the Floor Area Ratio mechanism, which allows developers to increase building heights over and above statutory limits when the sites are larger than 4,000sq.m and surrounded by existing streets.

If half the site is retained as an open space, the application of the floor area mechanism may result in an eight-storey development.

It is not clear whether more floors will be added to Australia Hall which is proposed as a “landmark building” in the plans the company submitted to the Planning Authority.   

The local plan approved in 2006 makes no reference to development around Australia Hall and only permits the “re-use” of the historical building as a “public meeting hall, for commercial use, exhibition space or other suitable cultural or recreational use”, including shops, offices, food and drink establishment or educational facilities.

The local plan also specifies that any development must respect the “architectural integrity of the site” and “the views to and from Australia Hall”.

Back in 2005 Fino had applied to turn Australia Hall into a supermarket but the application was withdrawn by the Planning Directorate.

The saga behind Australia Hall reached a head in 2014 when the new Labour government stopped a court action instituted by the Lands Department under the former Nationalist government, to take back the Pembroke land accorded to the party back in the 1970s as compensation for the then Labour government’s expropriation of Marsa land owned by the party, to make way for the Malta Shipbuilding corporation.

The Nationalist Party protested the Labour administration’s decision in 2014 to stop the court action, accusing it of using its overweening power for its party’s financial gain.

In July 2014, the PL transferred the land to A.H. Development for just €582,343, and in a statement said the final price took into consideration unspecified outstanding debts with the buyers. The land had long been promised to Fino in repeated promise-of-sale agreements that were never fully honoured.

The Labour Party is now being accused by the Inland Revenue Department of undervaluing the disputed land and property occupied by the historic Australia Hall in Pembroke by millions. The PL is opposing the tax charge by the Commissioner for Tax, who first said the Australia Hall land was worth nothing less than €5.5 million – merely months after the party sold the land – and then revised the value downwards to €2,025,000. The party is opposing the tax assessment in court, after it was told to pay an additional €14,426 in capital gains tax over and above the €23,296 first incurred on the original selling price.