Proposed changes to a scheme which regularises building infringements should not sanction illegal parts of buildings which jut into development zones, the Chamber of Architects (Kamra tal-Periti) said on Monday.
While recognising cases of properties built within the development scheme having parts of their site boundaries located within ODZ and which have so far been ineligible for regularisation, the chamber said it is essential to avoid creating regulations that are open to abuse.
Once again, the need arises for specific parameters to be set within which regularisation of such properties can and cannot be sought.
The chamber proposed that no part of the illegal building should be located within ODZ, and that the site boundary that extends into the ODZ should be entirely undeveloped and free from hard landscaping.
Urbanisation of rural settlements
It also warned that the changes the government has proposed would allow the regularisation of changes of use to Class 4a (offices) and Class 4b (shops), which would otherwise be in breach of local plans for rural settlements.
"These types of illegalities should not be regularised due to their incompatibility with the rural character of ODZ. The urbanisation of any part of the ODZ, including rural settlements, should be avoided at all costs, no matter the impact this has on individual private owners. The public good and the preservation of the rural environment and its characteristics should always prevail over private interests," the chamber insisted.
The proposed changes are to a regularisation scheme issued five years ago which the chamber had criticised at the time.
Entire scheme needs review
The chamber observed that the regularisation scheme served the purpose of placing properties that could not be put on the market due to unsanctionable and irreversible illegalities and thus had no effective value.
It was evident, it said, that the primary beneficiaries of this scheme were the owners who were unaware that they bought a property with illegalities.
They were, for all intents and purposes, conned and their good faith abused. When putting their property on the market, they suddenly realised that all the effort, time and sacrifice put into paying their home off was in vain, as the illegalities they were unaware of rendered their property devoid of any value.
Tenants paying for the ills of developers
But this effectively put developers off the hook from having deeds they signed off rendered null and void.
In practice, the victims paid the (monetary) price for regularising their position while the perpetrators were absolved from all penalties.
The chamber said the Planning Authority also greatly benefitted financially from the scheme. In 2019 alone, the PA generated €29 million through regularisation applications.
"Indeed, it may be argued that the PA has become financially dependent on regularisations," the chamber charged.
"It reached the point where regularisation applications are being demanded from planning officers to regularise discrepancies of one or two centimetres, adding thousands of euro to the total planning fee revenues per applicant.
Current regularisation scheme is 'morally dubious'
The current regularisation scheme is morally dubious, as it rewards those who break the law at the environmental and social expense of all those who follow it, the chamber said.
"This scheme encourages a mentality that paying money and asking for forgiveness while still profiting from misdeeds is an acceptable substitute for behaving correctly and complying with statutory requirements.
"Social justice and equity seem to have been sidelined altogether in the design of the original regularisation scheme.
"Moreover, whilst the scheme has allowed several properties to be placed on the market, the end result is still a significant number of properties that are substandard, poorly fabricated, or which fail to comply with building regulations, including the Energy Performance in Buildings Regulations. It is the Kamra’s position that the scheme should be reconsidered in its entirety to mitigate its social and environmental impacts."