After the dust storm kicked up by the approval of the permit for the conversion of the derelict room at Qala into a residential property, one would have expected the Planning Authority and its masters to make a quantum leap and change tack.
The public anger which boiled over following the Qala decision was genuine enough to make any policy-maker change his ways.
But, in an ominous analogy to the fuel station policy revision, which has been dragging on for eons now and which has not seen the stalling of pending applications, the much-touted ODZ policy revision exercise is not in any way stemming the deluge of applications similar to the Qala room.
And, to add insult to injury, in the aftermath of the Qala room ruckus, the three-member (two of whom are architects) ODZ Planning Commission headed by Elizabeth Ellul has been entrusted with deliberating on all applications dealing with ODZ areas, including those which are partly ODZ.
The major grievance with such a move is that Perit Ellul was the major mastermind behind the infamous 2014 revisions of the current permissive ODZ policies and would thus be expected to fully enforce them in any decision-taking forum.
Take for instance PA 0800/19, proposing the conversion of a disused farm building into a residential one within a ‘Strategic Open Gap’ (as designated within the relevant local plan) ensconced in Wied Anġlu at Birguma, Naxxar.
Quoting verbatim from the South Malta Local Plan, strategic open gaps are protected for the following purposes: (i) to check unrestricted urban sprawl and coalescence; (ii) to safeguard the countryside from urban encroachments, and (iii) to preserve the setting, townscape identity and character of towns and villages and prevent them from merging into one another.
It is deeply ironic that the disused farm building in question is sited within a country lane carrying the monicker Triq l-Għaxqa t’Għajn, which can be roughly translated into ‘Pleasure for the Eyes Street’, probably as a tribute to the beauty of the area. There is very little hope, despite the fusillade of objections from the usual quarters (ERA, environmental NGOs, Joe Citizen), that this application will be refused given the permissive nature of the current ODZ policies, which are being exploited to a tee by applicants and their architects.
One gets the impression that either farmers have developed a genuine love for swimming pools or that non-farmers are simply abusing the system
And there is an effusion of similar applications out there. Just to mention a few: PA 0429/19 proposes the demolition of an existing rabbitry at Żebbuġ (Gozo) to be replaced with a farmhouse and swimming pool; PA 05845/16 proposes the ‘restoration’ of an existing dilapidated rural building into a residential building with pool at Bidnija; PA 06469/19 proposes the addition of a swimming pool to an existing farm building in Wied il-Qlejgħa (Mosta, Chadwick Lakes).
Flitting through this applications, one gets the impression that either farmers have developed a genuine love for swimming pools or that non-farmers are simply abusing the system (and Ellul’s permissive policies) to simply land themselves a plush residence in enviable natural settings.
Contrary to the Qala room case, the Planning Authority is refusing to ‘undelegate’ any of the ODZ applications listed above from the clutches of the three-member Planning Commission to the more representative Planning Board. All planning applications entailing the uptake of more ODZ land should exclusively be deliberated upon at Planning Board level, where civil society and ERA have a say.
If needs be, the Planning Board can meet twice a week, rather than just once – the sheer importance of ODZ sites on this island would amply justify such a decision. Otherwise, the three-member, architect-dominated Planning Commission will keep calling the shots.
Given the track record of such a Planning Commission, which includes the approval of a substantial volume of ODZ development in a perfunctory manner, this does not bode well.
Wied Qirda in Żebbuġ: eight inches of asphalt and elimination of roadside vegetation just to service a fireworks factory. 
Overkill at Wied Qirda
The mind boggles as to why such a heavy-handed approach was applied by Infrastructure Malta at Wied Qirda (Żebbuġ, Malta). What could easily have been a low-key road patching exercise, which is consonant with the context in question (an access road along the side of a valley) turned out to be a fully-fledged road surfacing and widening exercise, fitting of any major traffic artery on the islands, simply to service a fireworks factory located deep within the same valley.
The cynics would have it that such a heavy-handed approach is simply paving the way for some residential development within the same valley swathes. Now that the damage has been wrought, with roadside vegetation bearing the brunt and thick strata of black asphalt being freely deposited along the same road, Infrastructure Malta has pledged to call in ERA to assess any environmental impact and also to mitigate any impacts.
Sound project planning dictates that you have environmental monitors on site during the execution of the project itself, rather than in the aftermath, as there is precious little that can be done once you have a fait accompli.
And some of the missives coming out of Infrastructure Malta reveal a glaring lack of knowledge of anything remotely linked with ‘ecology’. One cannot equate roadside ruderals (‘weeds’), which would sprout anyway, with established indigenous vegetation of conservation importance one normally finds in valley maquis communities.