The saying goes that it would be funny if it were not tragic. Prime Minister Robert Abela is studiously ignoring the reasons for his MEP election embarrassment and has instead been trying to distract voters with a hundred reasons why Labour managed to lose over 30,000 voters.
Before the election, he complained about the timing of the Vitals hospitals courts case.
He and his ministers then proceeded to turn its power of incumbency to an art form: they launched a Project-A-Day to impress the electorate and they sent cheques to practically every household.
Now, Abela is promising that he has heeded the electorate’s desire for courageous decisions and that “the moment has come to make decisions that can no longer be postponed”.
Who knows? Perhaps he was so busy campaigning that he overlooked the banners strung up in Sliema pleading for a stop to rampant building development and chaos on the roads and pavements. Perhaps he did not have time to read the plea from the St George archpriest in Victoria as well as regular NGO protests about the need to protect public space and pavements from commercial exploitation. Perhaps he failed to look up to see the ubiquitous tower cranes dotting our skies, dumping dust on us every day, eclipsing the natural beauty of our country.
The real hypocrisy is promising to listen to the electorate when Abela must be fully aware of the games being played by the Planning Authority with regard to height limitations.
As if we are not already choked by the dust and deafened by the noise from construction projects, this amendment could lead to taller, denser apartment blocks
Heritage NGO Din l-Art Ħelwa was too polite when its AGM approved a resolution saying that the changes being proposed might have “unintended consequences”.
In February, just a few weeks after the planning portfolio was assigned to Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri, the PA tried to persuade us that the proposed revision of policy was intended to provide a more “consistent understanding” of height regulations and the allowable number of floors in different localities.
The PA said this was required to “eliminate inconsistencies” in the interpretation of this policy. What it did not say was that the “interpretation” of the policy had led to various landmark judgments by the Court of Appeal which explained that some permits already issued by the PA – allowing floors beyond those envisaged in the respective Local Plans – were in violation of policy. So, not so much “inconsistencies” as being a poor loser. It later became clear what it would mean if the amendments to the policy go through: four-storey apartment blocks on sites currently designated for two floors with one receded, and five-storey apartment blocks on sites designated for three floors and one receded. And, shudder, it could even be applied retroactively to allow the sanctioning of buildings whose permit had already been revoked by the court as being not in line with the Local Plan. As if we are not already choked by the dust and deafened by the noise from construction projects, this amendment could lead to taller, denser apartment blocks.
If the infrastructure cannot cope with the drainage, congestion, and parking problems that we now suffer, how much worse would it be if we had even more people crammed into ever higher spaces.
Unbridled construction is impacting the quality of lives of everyone. How does the prime minister think that more building is “listening to the electorate”? Everyone needs to speak up. Protest and use your voice in the ‘consultation’ process open until Monday. Don’t say you weren’t warned.