News | Sunday, 05 April 2009

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Paying the price for an incorrect site notice

Hairdresser’s revoked, M’skala fish farm zone still on

James Debono
Architect and Siggiewi mayor Robert Musumeci is claiming MEPA must revoke a permit for the aquaculture zone for fish farms in Marsaskala, due to a precedent set by the authority itself.
Musumeci argued his case before the MEPA board, while representing a client facing the revocation of a permit for the extension of an Attard hair salon.
The revocation is being recommended by MEPA’s planning directorate because its own personnel forgot to affix the site notice, as according to the Development Planning Act.
Failure to affix the notice results in a revocation of the permit.
MEPA has already revoked the permit for another minor development in Marsaskala, because its site notice was erroneously affixed on another building.
But Musumeci is arguing that the same standard should apply with the Marsaskala aquaculture zone – whose notice was also affixed incorrectly: in Marsaxlokk!
MEPA has told MaltaToday the aquaculture application is sub judice before its Planning Appeals Board. “Once this appeal is concluded, a way forward will be explored,” a spokesperson said.
The permit for the fish farm zone, six kilometres from the Marsaskala coast, was approved in June 2004 amid strong objections from GRTU and the Marsaskala council, but enjoyed government backing.
The Marsaskala council then took MEPA to court, because its appeals board refused to recognise the council as a valid objector since its objections were not submitted within the stipulated time period.
In January 2009, the court declared that since the site notice for the aquaculture zone was affixed in another town, there was a clear breach of the Development Planning Act. The court asked MEPA’s appeals board to hear the Marsaskala council’s appeal.
Architect and Siggiewi mayor Robert Musumeci recently invoked the Marsaskala council’s case when the MEPA board was discussing the revocation of the permit for an extension to a hair salon in Attard.
Musumeci asked the board to rule on whether breaching this part of the law necessarily meant revoking the permit. He argued that if this was the case, then MEPA should use the same yardstick for the Marsaskala fish farms.
Faced with this argument, the board unanimously decided to defer the Attard case.
The MEPA board may revoke a permit before its appeals board even decides on the case, as had happened in the Ulysses Lodge case when the permit was revoked despite a pending appeal against the project presented by Nature Trust and Alternattiva Demokratika.

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