PA has moved away from its vision

With reference to a letter by the Planning Authority (October 15) and an editorial (October 18), the Malta Chamber of Planners would like to vehemently deny that half of the planning board’s voting members are qualified and/or experienced planners.

While they may be periti, spatial planning is a distinct science and it is uncanny and extremely disturbing that the Planning Authority itself seems not to understand the difference between the two professions. As a point of clarification, since he was mentioned in one of the articles, Vincent Cassar may be a very capable perit and a seasoned civil servant, but he is not a spatial planner.

The editor may have confused him with his brother, Godwin Cassar, who was instrumental in setting up the Planning Authority in the 1990s and invested heavily in the profession, giving the opportunity to many to pursue academic studies in the spatial planning science. Indeed, the chamber would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him for the recent Buonamico Prize, precisely in recognition of such an invaluable contribution to the profession and to the country in general.

May we remind the Planning Authority again that development control is but one of the many outcomes of spatial planning and not planning itself. Regrettably, the authority, whose mismanagement in recent years has led to the unprecedented loss of both experienced personnel and general workforce morale, has sought to dismantle, dilute or delegate its ‘forward’ planning functions.

Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

It is also probably very important to point out that the appointment of the members of the Planning Commissions since 2010 had to be determined through an interview process based on their technical competence with regard to spatial planning.

Since 2014, after the Environment Planning Commissions were replaced for no apparent reason other than not being “flexible and practical” enough, in the interest of transparency and accountability, the Planning Authority should issue the order of merit for the selection processes for the two calls that should have been made relating to the appointment of the Planning Commissions since 2014. This is in view of a number of resignations, some which merely involved shifting members from one commission to the other.

The public and successful candidates involved in these calls (since many more had passed the selection process than those sitting on the boards) have the right to know what should have been the line of succession and be reassured that the process has been transparent.

It is unfortunate that the Planning Authority has, in the past several years, moved away from its vision and mission statement, failing repeatedly to deliver sustainable development, transparency and effective public participation and moved towards a complex, cumbersome and opaque process where spatial policy decisions and policy interpretations are dealt with almost unilaterally, by obsequious individuals, whose focus is evidently not the common good of our communities and our cherished future generations.

Bjorn Bonello, president, Malta Chamber of Planners – Floriana