Despite Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo’s jovial disposition on a recent Xtra TV programme, where he extolled the positives of the current planning regime on the island, he too, hand on heart, will admit that the situation is not as rosy as he depicts it to be.
Actually, the current planning regime is a system designed and skewed in favour of development. Let me pan this out.
The minister listed the right to object to proposed development as one of the strengths of the current planning regime.
Actually, such a right has been ingrained within the legal framework underpinning the Planning Authority since time immemorial and, most importantly, it is not the granting of this ‘right’ on paper but its actual and effective implementation.
It is useless paying lip service to the “sacrosanct right to object to development” when objectors’ legitimate (not frivolous ones) concerns are constantly shunned and given the cold shoulder.
A case in point – only last June – the Planning Authority approved Joseph Portelli’s despicable Xagħra valley pool development despite the deluge of complaints being submitted. So how, exactly, are objectors’ voices being heard, Minister Zrinzo?
More a case of using the submission of objections to legitimise the current permit-approval machinery.
Not to mention the constant flow of objections from the ERA to proposed development and to sanctioning of illegalities, which are regularly swept under the carpet by the PA in a demeaning raspberry to its junior counterpart.
Yet another case in point is represented by a case which came to the fore at the start of this month, when the PA sanctioned flagrant illegalities conducted within an ODZ area in Bidnija during the abusive construction of a villa through a simply slap on the wrist, the imposition of a €1,200 fine.
The ERA was scathing and unequivocal in its recommendations on the case: “…it was increasingly concerned with the malpractice of first carrying out ODZ development abusively and subsequently expecting the regulatory authorities to retroactively rubber-stamp a fait accompli.”
But, probably, the greatest contradiction emerging from Zrinzo’s appearance on TV was his claim that the Planning Authority has been instructed to “look at the local context” when deliberating on planning applications. This ‘guidance’ is so generic so as to sound more like a convenient loophole which decision-makers can resort to when faced with unpalatable situations.
And this was exactly the case for the Bidnija valley villa, where all objections were simply dismissed by the three-member Planning Commission, which concluded that no further consultation was required, on grounds that the proposed development was ‘“considered to respect the rural context of the area”.
Those familiar with the site in question are fully aware that this anomalous conclusion could not be further from the truth, given the way that the development (that is, 2,000m-long walls, soil deposition, etc.) intrudes in and jars with the rural context in question.
It is useless paying lip service to the ‘sacrosanct right to object to development’ when objectors’ legitimate concerns are constantly shunned- Alan Deidun
The planning minister passed the buck to the infamous 2006 scheme rationalisation exercise, claiming that the current development craze could be pinned down to such an exercise.
This column has, ad nauseam, lambasted the same exercise and its repercussions on the Maltese natural and social fabric.
However, the unsavoury implications of such an exercise have been exacerbated in 2014 through the approval of the new ODZ policies, known formally as the Rural Policy and Design Guidelines (RPDG), which have facilitated ODZ development.
The minister conveniently failed to mention these policies and the grotesque manner in which they have contributed to a spike in ODZ development on these islands.
Portelli himself has availed himself of the same policies in getting his ODZ pool development at Qala approved (in connection with the gargantuan 164-apartment development) on the back of the same policies.
So much so that the Planning Authority issued a statement, in response to the outcry generated by such a permit approval, stating that the permit was “in accordance with the provisions of the RPDGs”.
Hence, the real source of the abuse is known and there is no point in dawdling or in beating about the bush any longer.
Given the sorry state of affairs, I find it hard to accept that Zrinzo can appear so smug in the media when speaking about the current planning regime.
If he is serious about reforming the Planning Authority, then he should sit around a table with civil society (environmental NGO) representatives, rather than simply with the construction and property-development lobby, to take stock of the valid recommendations they have been fielding for years on how to iron out abuse at the PA.
A few bold strokes can already help redress the balance, such as the overhaul of the infamous RPDG policies ushered through in 2014, which are providing so many loopholes to ODZ applicants, or the introduction of more inclusive Planning Commissions (rather than the current three-member composition so proficient in perfunctory hearings).
The RPDG policy overhaul has been promised for the past three years now but has never been delivered. Does this signal a lack of will to actually reform the current permissive planning system?
The construction and property industry might have buoyed the Maltese economy during difficult economic times but a continued reliance on the same industry is rendering the country uninhabitable.