While the Prime Minister reiterates his commitment to reform Mepa, the planning authority boards seem to keep ignoring him, the environmental NGO Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar charged yesterday, coming up with a list of fresh "irregular" permits.
Without naming names, the NGO's coordinator, Astrid Vella, said that recent research by the NGO revealed how a "politically-active" architect had recently seen all of his previously-refused 21 planning applications outside development zones approved at the appeals stage after having previously been refused twice.
"They didn't even have the decency not to overturn a couple to retain some credibility," Ms Vella said, reiterating her call for the authority's boards to be reconstituted immediately.
The problem at the authority was that the boards and the employees were being further demoralised by being made to carry the collective blame for the mistakes by the boards.
In this vein, she pointed out two houses in Sliema, one in Windsor Terrace and another in Amery Street, for which, she claimed, permits for full and partial demolition were issued respectively against Mepa policy.
The house in Windsor Terrace lies in the middle of a row of seven houses featuring typical post-war architecture and Maltese balconies.
The outline development permit was approved on appeal despite a call for refusal by the case officer and the first DCC board, which reviewed the case in 2006.
The permit now provides for the demolition of the house to be replaced by a block of 11 flats on four floors and a penthouse, Ms Vella said. The area is designated as a two-storey zone in the local plan.
Moreover, Mepa policy says that when there are three such consecutive houses on a street, they should be conserved, she added.
Miriam Cremona, a former Valletta Rehabilitation Project member, said NGOs would not need to get involved in cases such as the one on Windsor Terrace if Mepa did its job.
On the other house in Amery Street, which is scheduled for its architectural value, a permit was issued for its partial demolition (while retaining the façade) and the building of an additional floor following a recommendation for refusal by both the case officer and Mepa's heritage advisory committee.
In this case, Ms Vella called for the revocation of the permit on grounds that the architect, Michael Falzon, made a number of wrong declarations such as that there were no previous applications on this site when, in fact, there was one.
Mr Falzon, however, insisted when contacted, that there had been no attempt to hold back any information, pointing out that the planning process did take account of the previous application. Moreover, he said the two applications (he was only responsible for the second) were two worlds apart.
Ms Vella said the NGO had come across some 30 applications on scheduled property in which the architects did not mention the scheduling status of such properties.
She accused a "handful of architects of giving a bad name to their profession".
Ms Vella said that about 40 out of 60 enforcement notices issued recently ended up in the sanctioning of the illegal developments.
Mepa, last night strongly rebutted the claims, saying it regretted the fact that the media were "yet again being fed information riddled with inaccuracies and false accusations".
Mepa insisted that the decision taken on the Amery Street application respects height limitation and retains the house which the board considered merits retention nearly in its entirety. Contrary to the allegations, the house is not scheduled, Mepa noted.
The allegations about the Windsor Terrace application, approved on July 18, 2006, had already been rebutted by the DCC commission C board members in a letter to the press at the time.
Mepa added that it wanted to clarify that the Development Planning Act allows for boards to decide against the Directorate's recommendations. Decisions taken in the two cases in Sliema are in accordance with set procedures, it said.