Zone increase reduced by 0.1%

The final revision of development boundaries, submitted to the government by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, has marginally reduced the development zone increase from 2.4 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

During a press conference yesterday, Environment Minister George Pullicino defended the government's decision to go ahead with the controversial boundary rationalisation exercise and announced that he had filed a resolution in Parliament for the discussion to begin.

"We plan to conclude the matter and vote on the resolution before the summer recess," he said, "but that depends on the discussion."

The Cabinet's decision to extend the development boundaries to correct what it has described as anomalies created by temporary provisions to restrict development back in 1988 has dominated headlines in recent weeks.

In fact, four NGOs yesterday applied for an injunction in an attempt to prevent Mepa from presenting the final draft of the boundary extensions to the government. The presiding magistrate offered the authority an opportunity to react.

The minister said the exercise had been done in order to remedy anomalies that he described as the result of atrocious planning by a former Labour government. He used as an example a gas plant in Birzebbuga, which is situated right next to residential property, and said this kind of decision was the epitome of bad planning under the pre-1987 Labour administration.

He fiercely defended the Cabinet decision to create its criteria for Mepa to interpret in deciding what land should be included within the development boundaries, saying the government tried to strike a balance between social and environmental concerns while bearing in mind the national interest.

The public consultation process ended when the final submissions were made to Mepa a couple of weeks ago. In Mepa's last revision, a number of plots were included while others were excluded from the development boundaries.

The end result is a small reduction in the amount of land earmarked for inclusion. Previously it was estimated that the development zone would be increased by some 2.4 per cent when considering both the land lined up for inclusion under Mepa's local plans and that included under the Cabinet's criteria. Now that increase has gone down to 2.3 per cent.

The land included according to the Cabinet's criteria alone amounts to a 1.3 per cent increase, with the other one per cent deals with land under the local plans.

In fact, the minister emphasised how the debate on the zone extension had failed to consider that a lot of the land had already been included under the local plans process.

The minister said he was not able to provide statistics and details of the land included and excluded in this final process for the time being, but would do so as soon as possible.

He said he would be publishing a list of the beneficiaries of the rationalisation in the days to come, in response to a call by the Labour Party.

But the NGOs claim they can stop the process on the grounds that the proper procedure was not followed.

"There is a procedure which must be followed according to the Development and Planning Act and we feel that in this case the procedure was not followed," Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, one of the NGOs involved, told The Times.