Updated 6.10pm, adds MDA statement
Environment groups are going to court to contest a Planning Authority policy that allows buildings in Malta's towns and villages to go higher than permitted in local plans.
The relevant policy which allows for more floors than permitted in the local plans is illegal and should be struck down, Din l-Art Ħelwa and the Coalition for Gozo (Din l-Art Ħelwa Għawdex, Għawdix and Wirt Għawdex) said in a joint statement.
"Much damage has already been done to most village cores. But hopefully, we are still in time to save what remains before our villages turn into sprawling clusters of faceless apartment blocks."
They explained that building development in Malta is governed by a set of planning policies which at the highest level are approved by parliament and at other subsidiary levels are simply subject to ministerial approval.
Among the major policies governing development are the local plans which were approved by parliament in 2006. A key feature of the local plans is that they stipulate unequivocally the permitted number of floors allowed in every single street in Malta and Gozo.
"It is universally acknowledged that the main blight afflicting our village cores is the five floors being permitted in most Maltese and Gozitan villages, destroying the traditional aspect of these villages and ravaging our skylines. Yet, if one were to look up the local plans, it would be discovered that in the instances where up to five floors are being permitted, the stipulation in the local plans is actually for two or three floors," the groups said.
So what is happening?
They said the answer lay in a set of policies that the Planning Authority concocted some seven years back in a document called DC15. One of the policies, P35 along with Annex 2, permits development to exceed the number of floors set out in the Local Plans.
"This was done through a sleight of hand worthy of a master magician. To achieve this magic, the PA arbitrarily set the maximum heights in metres allowable for a determined number of floors: then the PA did something strange.
"They decided that the number of floors permitted in a street was not the number of floors set out in the local plans but the height in metres they had arbitrarily determined for that number of floors divided by the minimum height allowed for a floor in sanitary legislation. This led to a higher number of floors being permitted than allowed for in the parliament-approved local plans."
The groups insisted that logically and legally, this DC15 policy is flawed.
"First of all, it goes counter to any logic to use the number of floors allowed to determine a higher number of floors. Secondly, this leads to a situation where there are clear conflicts between different PA policy documents. In one place, namely the local plans, it is stated that in a particular street say, three floors are permitted. With another policy document, the DC15, the same street is allowed five floors. Planning legislation is quite clear in this regard in that when a conflict of this nature exists, the local plans have precedence and what is stated in the local plans is the legally correct interpretation," they argued.
MDA replies
In a reply, the Malta Developers Association expressed surprise at the move saying it came seven years after the policy was introduced.
It said that contrary to what the groups were claiming, DC15 did not introduce additional ground floor area over what was approved in the DC2000 namely because, prior to the DC15, individuals were allowed to live in semi-basements and basements.
Through the introduction of the DC15, the authorities and the government made it clear that it would not allow residential development to take place below street level, primarily to improve residents’ quality of life and to avoid any health-related issues emanating from such.
The policy had also increased the minimum square metres for dwellings, making Malta the smallest EU country with the highest minimum standards.
It said that if the groups challenged the DC15 in court, it would also challenge such especially with the removal of the internal development and the 30m limit of development and the removal of height limitations in urban conservation areas.
All of these measures, it said, have negatively affected its members. It invited environment NGOs to sit down with all stakeholders, to openly and frankly discuss how policies can be improved, in everyone’s best interest.