Last Updated on Thursday, 22 August, 2024 at 9:25 am by Andre Camilleri
A total of 2,118 new dwellings were approved during the second quarter of 2024, which is a 13.7% decrease compared to the same quarter in 2023, the National Statistics Office detailed in a report published on Wednesday.
It continued that a total of 453 permits were issued during Q2 2024, which is a decrease of 8.3% compared to Q2 2023. It said that building permits are authorisations to initiate new building projects and that the objective of these statistics is to indicate the future development of construction activity in terms of the number of approved new dwellings. The cut-off date for these statistics was 30th June 2024.
With that in mind, the NSO said that there was an average of 4.7 approved new dwellings per building permit for Q2 2024.
Breaking down the types of 2,118 approved new dwellings, the NSO said that the majority of these were apartments with 1,491 (70.4%). After apartments, it was penthouses with 333 (15.7%), maisonettes with 205 (9.7%), terraced houses with 66 (3.1%), and other residential units with 23 (1.1%). The term ‘other residential units’ includes buildings such as bungalows, farmhouses, and villas.
Comparing these statistics to Q2 2023 and looking at the Malta area and the Gozo-Comino areas separately, the NSO said that the number of approved new dwellings in Malta decreased by 17.5% while in Gozo and Comino, it actually increased by 8.4%. These statistics together result in the aforementioned total 13.7% decrease.
In terms of localities, the highest number of approved new dwellings was issued in St Paul’s Bay with 130. This was followed by Zabbar with 128, Mosta with 124, Birkirkara with 114, and Sannat with 111.
A number of localities had no new approved dwellings, those being St Lucia, Mtarfa, Mdina, Ghasri, Fontana, Birgu, Lija, Kirkop, and Gharghur. These were followed by Marsa with two new approved dwellings.
By district, the NSO said that the Northern Harbour District had the most with 542, while the Western District had the least with 191, which was still notably a 25.7% increase from the same quarter last year. Gozo and Comino had 388 approved new dwellings.
The NSO said that this data was sourced from the Maltese Planning Authority and that building permits for dwelling extensions, restorations, alterations, or demolitions “that have no effect on the number of new dwellings” were not included.
