Planning permits to be suspended during appeals under proposed reform

Updated 5.30pm with PN reaction below.

The government has launched a month-long public consultation on plans to suspend planning permits while they are under appeal, reversing a system that currently allows developments to proceed before legal challenges are decided.

Under the proposed reform, developers would no longer be able to begin works while an appeal is pending before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal or the courts.

Planning Minister Jonathan Attard said the government wanted the reform to become law as soon as parliament returns from its summer recess.

The proposed legislation also sets deadlines aimed at ensuring appeals are decided within around a year. The tribunal would have six months to determine a case, while the Court of Appeal would have four months, with the option of a two-month extension.

Even if those deadlines are exceeded, the suspension of the permit would remain in force until the appeal is decided.

Under the current system, developers can begin works as soon as a planning permit is issued, even if objectors challenge the decision before the tribunal or the courts.

That has led to cases where developments have been completed before a permit is overturned.

Speaking at a press conference at Castille on Tuesday, Attard said the reform was intended to ensure that appeals provide an effective remedy and not only a formal one.

The government has long promised a change first putting forward a white paper in 2023 under then minister Stefan Zrinzo. 

Those plans, however, never took off and were only brought up again as part of the wider and controversial planning reforms published in Bills 143 and 144 last year.

Following months of protests, the government shelved the wider reform package and pledged to proceed separately with the suspension of permits under appeal.

Since the start of the legislature prime minister Robert Abela has pledged that the change in law will be among his government's first legislative goals.

Abela said the reform will provide greater legal certainty for both developers and objectors.

He said the current system had also affected homebuyers, pointing to cases where people purchased properties that later became illegal after the permits were revoked.

Attard said he is confident the institutions will keep to their limits.

In order to imporve efficiency Attard said the appeals tribunal will be given a judicial assistant to help with administrative tasks, while new procedural powers would allow it to manage cases more efficiently.

Under the new system, the Environment And Planning Review Tribunal will have 30 days to hold its first hearing.

It must issue a decision within six months. Should the case be taken to the next level, the court will have four months to decide on a case. However, the court has the option to extend its deadline by two months.

The court will retain its right to revoke a permit, a power that had been proposed to be removed under the summer 2025 bill.

A 2025 proposal to penalise "vaxatious" appeals, is also not in the new law, Attard said.

Abela said the government will table the bill's first reading on Tuesday, and will also publish the proposed bill in the form of a white paper.

Consultations on the bill will remain open until August 18.

PN to request clarity of the government's proposals, seek wider reform

The Nationalist Party welcomed the government's announcement, noting it had repeatedly called for such action.

"The Opposition has insisted for years that an appeal against a planning permit must have real effect and that irreversible works should not be allowed to be completed while the legality of a permit is still being challenged," shadow minister Rebekah Borg said. 

She pointed out that the government's announcement on Tuesday was a repetition of what it had done in 2023, only to then leave the current defective system in place for another three years.

Borg said that what the government was proposing should be part of a wider, comprehensive reform of the planning process.

As for the current proposals, the PN would insist on clarity for both applicants and those who have submitted planning objections.

"We want clarity on whether every appeal will result in an automatic suspension and, if not, which appeals will be covered. We also want clear guarantees on who may appeal, how pending cases will be treated, and what resources will be provided to the Tribunal and the Court so that the proposed deadlines can genuinely be observed," Borg said. 

"We welcome the fact that, according to the announcement, the courts will retain the power to revoke a permit and that the proposal to impose a fine for an appeal deemed frivolous will be withdrawn.

"Our support will be for a law that provides citizens with an effective remedy, without loopholes, broad exceptions or hidden restrictions on the right of appeal. We reiterate, however, that Malta needs holistic, serious and consultation-based reform addressing the planning system in its entirety," the shadow minister insisted.