Green NGOs ask court to halt development zone extensions

Four environmental organisations have applied for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the Malta Environment and Planning Authority over the planned development zone extensions.

The organisations asked the First Hall of the Civil Court to stop Mepa from processing, in any way, the submissions made by the public after Mepa released maps indicating how local plans would be modified.

No court ruling had been forthcoming by the time of writing yesterday.

Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar (Together For A Better Environment), the Biological Conservation Research Foundation, Friends of the Earth (Malta) and the Ramblers' Association said the maps showed the manner in which the local plans for Malta and Gozo would change and indicated the land that would now be developable on the basis of a memorandum sent to Mepa by the Cabinet of ministers. Land that would be developable at the express request of the government also featured on the maps.

The court was also asked to stop Mepa from communicating to the government any conclusions it might have reached on the matter.

The laws regulating planning did not envisage a situation whereby the minister responsible for planning or indeed the Cabinet could impose changes to the local plans, as was the case with the Cabinet's memo, the four organisations submitted. All the law provided for were proposals by the Cabinet. It was only in situations where Mepa disagreed with such suggestions and publicly stated its position on planning that the minister could present the government's position on development. In this case the proceedings had not reached such a stage.

The NGOs claimed that the Cabinet's memo was ultra vires its powers in terms of the planning law.

Mepa, they added, had seriously failed in its duties when it accepted to publish plans that amended the local plans on the basis of the memo. It ought to have referred the memo to the Appeals Board, they argued.

The NGOs said the criteria set by the Cabinet were contrary to the Structure Plan. The memo introduced concepts that were totally alien to planning laws, namely the social considerations that had motivated the government to allocate large areas of land for development. This was not based upon any scientific criteria, for there would be no shortage of housing units by at least 2020.

They added that the rush for the approval of the new local plans could be the result of the coming into force of a legal notice on July 21. According to such legal notice, a strategic environmental assessment had to be carried out on any additional developmental land.

If the Cabinet memo was adopted, it would lead to irreversible damage to the countryside, which the four NGOs said they were pledged to protect.

Lawyer Joseph Ellis acted for the NGOs.