Apartments forming part of Joseph Portelli’s mega-project slated for the former Jerma Hotel site in Marsascala are being marketed for sale online once again, even though the project is still in the “screening process” and without the Planning Authority’s stamp of approval.
An online advertisement on Facebook Marketplace encountered by The Shift follows a similar marketing spree as last year’s when several different property agencies advertised apartments from the still-to-be-approved project.
The Shift has confirmed that J Portelli Projects is in informal talks with the Planning Authority and that the Authority has requested a downsizing of the proposed development for a better chance of approval.
The current publicly available proposal for the site, PA/437/23, would see the demolition of the abandoned Jerma Hotel and the construction of a “mixed-use resort” with two eight-storey blocks with 155 residential units, 258 serviced apartments, a 134-room hotel and a shopping centre.
A Facebook Marketplace listing from August 2023 advertising residential units at Portelli’s Jerma project.
Last year, The Shift analysed several online adverts with at least four resellers pitching the mixed-use development for sale to early buyers. A Planning Authority proposal had not yet been submitted at the time, and residential units were being marketed at around €300,000 each.
The Shift is now informed that given the downsizing, residential units at the complex are now expected to cost upwards of €400,000. The Planning Authority website shows no such developments concerning the site since March, with an Environmental Impact Assessment and a Case Officer’s report still to be published.
The Jerma Hotel site, now a popular swimming area, was subject to several planning proposals by its previous owners since its abandonment in 2007. The government refused all applications for mixed-use development since the site was historically meant strictly for tourist accommodation.
A block plan of the proposed development at the Jerma site
Following reports in 2019 that Portelli was fronting a group of investors looking to develop the site for a mixed-use development, the proposals were no longer outright rejected.
The Jerma project is far from the first time one of Portelli’s developments was marketed and sold before planning permits were approved or even submitted to the Planning Authority. The Shift has reported similar situations for plots in Qrendi and apartments near Sannat Cliffs in Gozo.
More recently, Portelli’s highly controversial Mercury Towers project in the heart of Paceville was given a massive boost thanks to manoeuvres from Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, who declared it a Special Designated Area (SDA) through a new legal notice, allowing foreigners to buy unlimited amounts of property at the project while benefiting from tax incentives.
Wasn’t Jerma built by the Libyans on public land? It would be interesting to know if Portelli’s title to it is freehold or temporary emphytheusis. The Planning authority does not determine title issues and any permit given is always subject to.
Just as a generic comment – Where is the public interest in giving public land for apartments?
There isn’t a public interest in giving land for hotels either given that the jobs that hoteliers are providing are mainly to third country nationals and there is an oversupply of rooms.
The public interest is to have open spaces. We have given way too much to both the construction industry and the tourism industry.
Especially when many Maltese can’t afford a home!!!!!Our politicians have long sold us out…….and aligned their priorities with big money
they also sold our identity to the fraudsters and corrupt.
ghall-portelli kollox possibbli.
This is Portelli il-King And the Portellis of this Lilliput. They sell on plan before even submitting PA applications, let alone getting the green light. Their power is absolute. Buyers are at their feet and speculators comply. Objections? Refusals? On they march unperturbed until their get their way. In with the trucks and machinery. L-ekonomija! GDP! Naqilghu lira! Repubblika tal-Gafef u Krejnijiet. No consideration for anyone and anything.
Unless I am mistaken, even in the Pembroke project deemed to ‘excellently’ replace the ITS complex there were apartments offered for sale – with advertisements also placed abroad – while the whole saga was being fought (tooth and nail) against by the residents themselves as well as others,
Somehow or other(?) the project has finally been ‘approved’. Any guesses why?
mafiamalta – greed and corruption is the order of the day. this muvument korrott is giving our island to speculators and people of thrust. They don’t care less as their villas are away from the pubic eye in some exotic island and when the time comes all will flee, the usual method used by most of corrupt governments leaving only disasters and debt ridden countries after they leave.
kemm ghandu sahha dan il-bniedem – jewill qieghed jahdem bi flus il-korrotti firl-muvument korrott? gafa – jafu l-awtoritajiet l-origini ta dawn il-miljuni ta’ ewro? min jisraq mejjet fis-sakra u min mejjet ghall-qatra. Mafiamalta mhix post l-onest.
Darba meta kien deputat Varist qal (hemm ligi ghal allat u ligi ghal animali). Prosit Varist kont ilqaght il musmar fuq rasu. Dan Portelli nahseb li hu ikbar min Alla, sirna nafu bih meta il miserabli Muscat sar prim u gie mil Kanada ghax qabel qat ma smajna bih u mbierka is sapjenza tal mulej f daqa wahda far bil gid. Kul ma xix imiss qed isirlu deheb u int ja gahan Malti biex taghmel xi haga trid toqghod tilghaq sorm il ministru. Jekk filghodu jqum u jfetillu li irid jibni torri l Mdina jew xi marina ix Xlendi nilghab mhatra li ituhulu il permes.
Meta ser titghalem poplu Malti? Meta ser johdulek kollox u ikun tard wisq se titghalem.
Wara to late!