Last week, a number of civil society groups announced they will be contesting the Planning Authority’s much-maligned DC15 policy in the law courts.

The groups argue that this policy permits more floors than the local plans allow, and the result has been the irreversible damage wrought to village cores and towns around the Maltese islands. In some instances, buildings of up to five floors are being allowed in areas where the local plan specifies that the maximum number of floors is two or three.

The groups argue that the PA has bypassed the local plans to allow the construction of more floors. Not only has this caused a contradiction in the PA’s own policies but the DC15’s Annex 2 – unlike the 2006 local plans – has not been approved by a parliamentary vote.

There are a few key takeaways from civil society’s umpteenth recourse to the law courts. First, the matter has been met with complete, yet unsurprising, silence from the PA, the minister for planning and, obviously, the prime minister. This shows there’s no will to reform the contentious policies, far less to understand the grievances brought forward by civil society.

By extension, it means that the government shall continue to ignore the thousands of citizens who have, individually or as groups, objected to hundreds of planning applications based on flawed policies such as this.

Second, the NGOs’ court action has once again placed the PA and its administration under the limelight. Not only were the 2006 local plans never sent to the European Commission for its approval but the plans themselves have been superseded by a new policy or, rather, by an annex which was never approved in parliament.

If a far-reaching policy such as this was not subjected to parliamentary scrutiny, it’s also because those who ordered, wrote and enacted DC15 were directly working against the well-being of citizens, in favour of the vested interests of powerful groups or individuals.

But if the government pretends to ignore the NGOs’ latest action – especially after the courts found in their favour on numerous occasions – the Malta Developers’ Association stepped in to defend the nefarious DC15 policy.

The MDA expressed “surprise” at the action, saying it only came seven years after the policy was introduced.

This in itself further strengthens the NGOs’ arguments, however. Not only was DC15 introduced stealthily but its negative effects would only start surfacing years later. Unlike the MDA, civil society does not have the same access to Castille or to the PA’s CEO. Such policies, written to the benefit of developers but hidden from parliament, were also concealed from these groups.

That the MDA, not the government, is defending this policy is telling indeed. In fact, the MDA’s posture on DC15 echoed what its CEO, Michael Stivala said during the State of the Nation conference: “Policies are there to be followed” and “if there’s a need to update them, let’s update them”.

Stivala knows his lobby is a major culprit of the current construction overdrive. Talk of updating policies is not credible because DC15 was written to benefit the construction lobby. It is another tool that sustains a greedy model which has destroyed Malta’s quality of life and townscapes over the years.

Similarly, planning policies in which the MDA may have had a hand cannot be challenged by either NGOs or citizens unless court action is initiated, more so when so-called consultations ignore residents’ submissions.

The MDA’s call for NGOs to withdraw their legal action and “openly and frankly discuss how policies can be improved” is, at the very least, arrogant and condescending. The law courts could be the citizens’ only solution in righting a small part of the wrongs