VALLETTA — The Planning Authority has approved a permit for a balcony that will, according to the approved plans, sit half on one house and half on the house next door, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Neighbours were surprised to learn that the new balcony, which appears on the Authority’s digital portal as a tasteful limestone ledge with a glass balustrade, will extend 1.2 metres into a bedroom belonging to Karmenu Grech. Karmenu says he never consented. The Authority says he did — on paper.
”Ara, the drawing is very clear,” said Tumas Bonnici, a Planning Authority spokesperson. “When something is nicely drawn, it becomes part of the environment. If it’s on paper, it exists in planning. Mela, that’s how the system works.”
Measurements by email and imagination
The approval was processed without a site visit after the architect uploaded a PDF and ticked three checkboxes. Officials said measurements were verified using “aerial imagery and common sense,” and the applicant’s note that the balcony would provide “a Mediterranean experience” was judged to be an adequate environmental impact statement.
”We don’t want to be pedantic. If a balcony makes the skyline nicer, it’s good for everyone — including the person whose bedroom it covers,”
Mr Grech, who lives on the ground floor with a single bed directly under where the balcony would hang, said he only found out when a friend texted him a screenshot. “I opened the image and I said, iva, this is my bed, xi ħaġa? How can a balcony be on my bed?” he said. He has started charging the would-be balcony owner €10 a night for unauthorized rooftop use.
Architects say this is how modern Maltese planning works. “We prefer to think in layers,” said architect Marija Spiteri. “The neighbours are just extra terraces in a mixed-use vista.”
At press time, a Planning Authority inspector was on his way to check whether the balcony also exists in 3D, or only in PDF.