Environmental lobby groups have come out against the extension of planning permits, which they say should have been put for public consultation.
Last week, the Planning Authority announced that all planning permits which were due to expire between now and the last day of 2022 had been extended by an additional three years.
The extension, which was confirmed through a legal notice, effectively gives additional breathing space to anyone who received a development permit from early 2018 onwards, by stretching out the permit’s standard five-year validity period.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, several NGOs said the legal notice had come into effect when Malta is focused on coping with the COVID-19 virus outbreak and was, therefore, bound to go largely unnoticed.
The move was also not preceded by a "legally-required" public consultation, they said.
The PA has justified the move, saying it was taking proactive measures to prevent current permit holders from having to carry out a significant amount of work within a short period, once normality is restored.
The NGOs, however, argued that the publication of the legal notice will see applications which were about to expire be renewed “almost automatically”.
“So what is the reason to suddenly offer a blanket extension to all applications with the excuse of a construction industry struggling COVID-19 crisis,” the NGOs asked.
The blanket extension, they said, would also make forthcoming reforms of a number of major planning regulations, “merely token policies”, since all extended applications will not need to conform to these policy revisions.
“The Planning Authority and the politicians who drive it make it crystal clear yet again, that their priority is not the regulation of planning systems that ensure the public’s well-being, but the fostering of the destructive construction mania so eagerly promoted by the development lobby,” the NGOs said.
Video-conferencing meetings is discriminatory
Meanwhile, the government had also announced that the PA board and its commissions will now carry out meetings using video-conferencing or other electronic means of communication.
The NGOs said that this was discriminatory and excluded those without access to electronic means of communication.
“It makes a mockery of the Planning Authority’s obligation to have meetings which are open to the public… Planning permits will be issued practically by email whilst the appeal process before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal and the Court of Appeal is completely at a standstill,” they said.
The statement was issued by Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Futur Ambjent Wieħed, Ramblers Association, Bicycle Advocacy Group, Malta Youth in Agriculture Foundation, Friends of the Earth Malta, Moviment Graffitti, Nature Trust, and Isles of the Left.