Must Malta's beauty perish?

To uglify is to make ugly. Uglification - itself an ugly word - describes what happens when things are made ugly. Physically unappealing.

Minister George Pullicino's recent brave and impassioned plea about the current state of Maltese architecture, and the part played in it by members of his own profession, struck a chord with Din l-Art Helwa. Ever since our inception almost 40 years ago we have striven hard, often in vain, to turn back the tide of ugliness that has threatened Malta's beauty.

With few exceptions, the uglification of the last 40 years has been relentless. The overwhelming surge of construction development compounded by, in the main, poor and tasteless architecture, has taken its toll.

It started with several large tracts of land at Ghajn Zejtuna (the Santa Maria Estate) and Kortin in Mellieha. This was followed by the onslaught on Sliema, the valleys and much of the coastline. The abomination that is City Gate and the building of the Excelsior Hotel directly on the Valletta bastions were early indications of a barbaric disregard for our historic fortifications. Fort Chambrai was a later victim.

The uglification of Sliema stands as a stark example of all that has gone wrong with Malta's urban development over the last 40 years. Sliema, once a most elegant and dignified place where to live, has been largely turned into a town teeming with the grossest apartment blocks, devoid of architectural merit, soulless monuments to greed and speculation. (In parenthesis, I should add that internally the apartments I have seen are mostly luxurious, in stark contrast to their exterior).

Qawra, Bugibba, St Paul's Bay, St Julians, Marsascala, Marsaxlokk, not forgetting the once charming fishing villages of Gozo, have all succumbed to the bulldozer and the jack hammer of rampant construction development.

Nor have the traditional Maltese villages been spared. Many formerly beautiful, classic village cores have been transformed. Once integral and distinct villages have spread outwards to present a virtually unbroken amorphous mass ranging from Mosta to Zurrieq.

Despite the welcome and overdue creation of the Planning Authority (now the Malta Environment and Planning Authority) in 1992, this tide of uglification, personified by over-development combined with second-rate architecture, has persisted. The legacy of the last four decades is that there are now parts of Malta which are irredeemably ugly. Compare and contrast with 'old Malta', as exemplified by Vittoriosa and Senglea. Then, weep.

Must all of Malta's beauty perish? The answer must surely be No - not unless we let current policies continue. What should be done?

The cardinal first step is for the government to exercise the political will to make changes to the way we use and share this tiny land. It surprised me to hear Minister Pullicino complain about what his profession had done to our country when he, and his ministerial predecessors, have always been in the position to do something about it.

While I appreciate that he can have only limited influence over the calibre of architects produced by the Faculty of Architecture, those who graduate to that profession work in a climate and according to development rules set by our legislators through the Development Planning Act.

Have he and his ministerial colleagues the political will to take the following 10 steps?

Ensure that the new Structure Plan for Malta imposes a halt on further construction development outside specified, tightly defined areas. The new Structure Plan must in effect say "so far and no further". This structure plan must be underpinned by the force of law.

Reject any further buildings 'Outside the Development Zone' (ODZ). The current laissez-faire approach to the ODZ must cease. Tough sanctions must be applied to those who transgress them. The Mepa Planning Board and Control Commissions must be bound by the force of law to apply the rules rigidly and to restrict their flexibility to decide issues subjectively.

Reduce the rate of approval of development applications by setting and adhering to annual threshold figures for the different types of construction development: hotel beds, housing, restaurants, shops, industrial complexes etc.

Allocate the remaining unbuilt plots of land in development areas in a phased manner to slow down and stabilise development.

Actively protect urban conservation areas and impose and apply tight criteria on rural conservation areas.

Ensure that the aesthetic merits of a planning application are an integral element of the planning process and that planning permission will not be granted unless aesthetic criteria are met. Re-introduce a recognisably Maltese 'grammar' into our vernacular architecture.

Update and reform the rent laws. This government promised to do so almost two years ago, but has still not taken the first steps to honour this commitment.

Introduce a hoarding tax on any properties which still lie empty 12 months after completion. Buildings left uncompleted should attract a daily fine if they are left in shell form for longer than a year after the start of construction.

Control the extraction of limestone from our quarries by setting annual limits. Increase the price of stone to reflect more accurately its economic worth as an irreplaceable resource.

Introduce minimum thresholds for the re-use of old stone in new developments.

Must Malta's beauty perish? Must it become, in Professor Quentin Hughes' words, 35 years ago, "just another blighted area of exploitation"? The solution lies in the hands of our legislators, our planners and our architects.

But the paramount action lies with our government. Sooner or later there must be a government with the courage to acknowledge that further large-scale development is not sustainable if Malta is to remain a tolerable place in which to live and for the canker of uglification to be halted.

That time is now.