Rewarding audacious arrogance

Developer Carlo Stivala illegally blocked a narrow street by installing a massive crane spanning its entire width to turn a Sliema townhouse into a hotel. Yet Transport Malta conveniently accommodated him by removing nine parking bays in an adjacent one-way street to make space for two-way traffic while Stivala proceeded with his plans.

Those plans included illegally demolishing the facade of a Sliema building, which the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage described as having “a degree of historical and architectural value”.  And if that weren’t shameless enough, he’s now filed a new application to sanction his illegal demolition and to increase his hotel from 15 floors to 17 floors, burying the adjacent buildings.

He’s also planning to sneak in an additional floor by adding a “demountable lightweight tent” on the roof.

What’s even more depressing is that it’s obvious that he will get his way.  Labour will gladly sanction his illegalities and selfish greed, and give him the green light to just go ahead and trample over the hundreds of objections of residents.

With Robert Abela in power, the developers’ lobby has been given free rein to do as they please, bulldozing buildings of architectural and historical value, darkening entire neighbourhoods with their monstrous developments, and blocking entire streets for months on end, sometimes without the necessary permits.

Stivala’s example is just the latest in a series of blatant abuse of the public’s patience by developers and their utter disregard for the perennial ordeal they inflict on citizens, but it may be one of the most brazen.

In 2018, Stivala obtained a permit to convert the former Sliema Labour Party club at Triq San Vinċenz from a three-storey building to a nine-storey apartment block.   In 2023, he applied to convert his planned apartment block into a 15-storey hotel, sparking widespread controversy among residents, who submitted over 600 objections.

Of course, those objections were completely ignored, and Stivala got his permit. Nobody would expect otherwise from a Labour administration hell-bent on appeasing the construction lobby and with a Prime Minister who has dabbled in construction himself.

When the construction lobby funds your political party, you’re hardly going to complain.  That permit (PA2965/23) specified that the facade of the original building should be retained because of its historical and architectural value. But did Stivala care?

The first thing he did was install a massive crane in the narrow Triq San Vinċenz, blocking traffic without warning residents.  They reacted with anger at the closure of the busy side street leading down to the Ferries. To add insult to injury, parking on an adjacent street was banned because the street had to accommodate two-way traffic to make up for the closure of the adjacent road.

The authorities granted Stivala a permit to erect the massive crane in that narrow street and to keep it there for over two years, until June 2027. Yet Stivala had no permit to close the street.  He might have had a permit to erect the crane, but not to block access to that busy road.

Transport Malta, which had given him the permit to erect that crane, said “the contractor had no authorisation whatsoever to proceed with the works”. You would think Stivala would face some serious repercussions for blocking the road.  Instead, Stivala was fined the ridiculous sum of €1,500. That’s not a deterrent to blocking a road to build a multi-million-euro hotel.

But Stivala wasn’t done trampling over the residents’ right to quiet enjoyment of their properties.  He wasn’t finished blatantly disregarding the law.

He covered up the site with scaffolding and wooden panels, probably to conceal from the public what he was up to.  The whole building, including the facade that Stivala was bound to preserve, had been demolished.

No action was taken against Stivala, the brother of Michael Stivala, the President of the Malta Developers Association. The Planning Authority took no direct action. They didn’t issue any enforcement notice requiring the reversal of the illegal demolition, even though they had the authority to do so. No daily fines were imposed. 

The Planning Authority has the power to reject any new development applications on a site that has active, illegal or non-compliant development. Yet Stivala is utterly brazen. He’s lodged another application seeking to sanction the demolition of that architecturally and historically valuable building.

On top of that, he wants to increase the number of rooms in his hotel from 75 to 124, increase the number of floors from 15 to 17, add two restaurants at ground level and another on the 16th floor, excavate two basement levels to add a sauna and a multi-purpose hall and 10 garages,  and construct his demountable tent on the roof.

We know exactly what comes next.  The Planning Authority will simply ignore all of Stivala’s breaches, sanction his irregularities, and politely ask him to pay another ludicrously trivial fine. Labour did warn us it was pro-business.