Sustainable land use

Friends of the Earth (Malta) has presented the Malta Environment and Planning Authority with its objections to the proposed extension of development boundaries.

FoE (Malta) is greatly concerned about the manner by which the proposal to give up further land for development has been handled by the authorities.

It questions the validity of any public consultation exercise by the government when the criteria against which land will be given the green light for development are already been approved by Cabinet.

The term rationalisation effectively means an enlargement of the development zone by 2.4 per cent.

It is ironic that notification of this "rationalisation" exercise came a couple of weeks after a national conference on sustainable development organised by the Environment Ministry, where the issues of land use and over-development, as well as the environmental damage from the construction industry, were the most discussed subjects. Clearly, sustainability is only a buzzword among our politicians.

Contrary to what is being claimed, there is no social need for more dwellings, as Malta has more than 20,000 empty housing units. The records show that with 22 per cent of Malta's and Gozo's surface area being built up, as opposed to an average of seven per cent in Europe, every bit of our islands' fast-disappearing countryside is precious.

The Maltese can no longer tolerate the unsustainable building activity with appalling levels of dust and noise that is causing a deterioration in the quality of life of the public. The lack of regulation of building activity is also causing widespread health problems, especially asthma and related conditions.

The loss of more countryside, and the filth, noise and unsightly surroundings caused by permanent building sites are having a negative effect on tourism, the mainstay of our economy, with job losses already being felt in the sector.

Given this situation, what is required is a moratorium on further development, pending serious study of Malta's housing needs, not further building.

The construction industry should gear its activities toward renovation and rehabilitation rather than construction on virgin land.

Many of the sites being considered do no meet the criteria set by Parliament as they are not sufficiently flanked by urban areas, land of ecological value, trees which are protected species, areas of established or potential archaeological value as well as agricultural and garigue land.

Furthermore, no strategic environmental assessment or environmental impact assessment as required by EU directives has been made with regard to the extension of the development zone. This plan is also in violation of the Constitution which declares (chapter II, 9) that:

"The State shall safeguard the landscape and the historical and artistic patrimony of the nation". FoE, therefore, strongly object to Mepa acting as a mere rubber stamp to authorise more land being given out for development against the people's will.

The government should reconsider its decision which will do irreparable damage to what is left of our countryside. The government's proposal should not be approved and all should work instead for a better environment through measures that truly reflect the national interest. This apart from the fact that the 90 per cent of landowners who will not benefit from this rationalisation scheme will consider such a process as yet another injustice and will now be piling pressure on this government (or a potential Labour government) to extend the scheme boundaries or modify the selection criteria so that their land will also be included.

All this regardless of the fact that our politicians admit that we already have enough land given up for development to meet our current and future needs, that more than 40,000 dwellings are unoccupied, that Malta has fewer than 50 years of building stone left at the current rate of construction, and the fact that all this needless development is destroying our tourism potential and affecting public health.

We do not believe this rationalisation process is in the public interest; if rationalisation is the objective of this exercise, one would have expected the government to remove an equivalent footprint of land of high scenic and ecological value from the development zones.

Finally, FoE (Malta) believes it would have contributed more effectively towards sustainable land use planning should it have been invited to assist the authorities when the matter was still at the drawing board stage.

Mr Galea De Giovanni is coordinator of Friends of the Earth (Malta).