The government's decision to quietly extend development permits by three years is unacceptable and should be immediately revoked, Moviment Graffitti is insisting.
Times of Malta reported on Friday that the government quietly published a legal notice that provides a three-year blanket extension to all planning applications that were set to expire by the end of next year.
The publication of this legal notice was carried out without any public consultation, Graffitti said.
Given that legal notices do not require parliamentary approval before coming into effect, the government has effectively found a means to pass legislative changes under the radar.
"While Prime Minister Robert Abela was busy congratulating himself for a ‘positive meeting’ with Moviment Graffitti activists at the height of the action in Mosta earlier, his planning minister was busy with quietly appeasing the same developers who are responsible for the destruction of our environment," the activists' movement said.
The same strategy was used in March 2020, when the COVID pandemic was at its initial stages and a legal notice used to quietly give developers a "helping hand" without any public consultation on the matter.
"We strongly condemn this blanket amnesty since it will only serve to enable development which has been pending for years based on the thin excuse that many projects were halted due to the interruption of global supply chains," Graffitti said.
It is also important to note that permits approved long ago and given an additional three-year extension will not be subjected to planning policies implemented after the permit was approved.
Developers who were not even able to start their projects within the timeframe that is given to them should not be rewarded with a universal extension, and should instead undergo the entire planning process from scratch.
Graffitti said this legal notice is clearly the result of yet more lobbying from the Malta Developers’ Association.
"Unlike the general public, the MDA evidently has the ear of planning minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, who has spent most of his tenure as planning minister bending over backward to appease them while failing to take any action to rein in the construction industry’s deadly excesses.
"When the MDA as much as whimpers, the government listens attentively. When activists, residents, and experts yell loudly at the top of their lungs about how the environmental situation in Malta is not sustainable, the government sends in the police."