The past months were characterised by a lot of talk about property prices and high-rise buildings, not to mention the perennial debate over the extent of development boundaries. This clearly manifests the influence urban planning has on individuals and the eagerness people show to participate in the planning process, feeling very often that their views are not being given due consideration.

I strongly believe that planning should be an inclusive hands-on science, endeavouring to understand society, identifying its needs and those of future generations, yet sometimes I feel we tend to forget our obligations to society and embark on planning policy, basing solely on foreign experience, influenced by strong business lobbies or pompous personal perceptions of shaping an ideal society.

We cannot aspire to have garden cities or Poundbury-like settlements, but we cannot adopt a masked Thatcherite laissez faire approach, which could have deep economic repercussions on some of our vibrant towns and villages.

Almost all of the larger projects, given our size, could qualify for a strategic impact assessment. Many of these could even destructively interfere with one another, so let us become conscious that the Maltese Islands are indeed a very small archipelago and not a continent.

Whatever we do through land use policy will have an effect on other parts of the country almost immediately. Yet we have to allocate land to satisfy the various competing uses with a view that it (land) is the most important non-renewable resource we have.

Contrary to what people may think, the very essence of urban planning is indeed Government intervention intended to correct market failures and negative externalities. In this context, market failures are those aspects for which the market will not cater because they are driven by the short-term interest of making money.

Market failures include urban sprawl, lack of affordable housing and sporadic developments in the countryside. Negative externalities are the impacts of market failures, such as lack of infrastructure for future growth, adverse visual impacts, pollution and the loss of valuable urban and social fabric.

In this regard, Government intervention, through planning policies and development control, should be exercised to maximise winners and minimise losers, using planning gain (which could be, but is not limited to, providing open spaces, affordable housing and public art) to mitigate or compensate for any possible adverse impacts.

Inevitably, the planner's long-term vision and the politician's five-year term are often in conflict, yet a long-term vision need not be cumbersome to implement, as protracted studies have been proved to become outdated the moment they are published.

Even though political intervention is essential, by now we should have also realised, through EU accession, that public consultation ought to be exhaustively used, realistic and credible. The active involvement of local councils, perhaps even voting powers at the executive level (such as the MEPA board), when taking decisions on large projects that could affect their or neighbouring councils, should be seriously considered.

Readers with a basic knowledge of market conditions know that over-supply brings about a drop in prices. Those who follow world markets know that North America is going through a worrying slump in its sub-prime mortgage market due to slack lending practices and small-to-medium residential housing over-supply.

Some of the multi-billion dollar building and lending conglomerates have been drawn close to bankruptcy in the past days. In addition, with global interest rates rising, many question if the property bubble also affecting European commercial property sectors could burst.

Curiously, however, although these market conditions prevail around the globe, our 315 km2 island seems fortunately immune to this conventional logic. Locally, housing stock statistics are patchy and probably those in hand are very conservative, although there is apparent agreement that there is a significant over-supply and a multitude of improvised operators (estate agents, turnkey contractors and speculators) who inflate prices so much that most properties become unaffordable for fist-time buyers.

Confident that prices will not go down (at best they will remain at current levels), I do believe that this frenetic race to repay loans has brought about, in the last ten years, great tension and stress between couples, resulting in fewer children and an increasing rate of broken marriages.

One could also argue, very naively, that this is not a bad thing for the housing market since this sad situation has resulted in a significant increase in one-person households! The factors that mostly contribute to high housing prices have already been dealt with at length, so I will only touch on how, in my opinion, Government could intervene to secure a supply of affordable housing and tackle high-rise buildings.

In addition to the very positive moves that have recently seen the Housing Authority at the forefront with a myriad of initiatives, urban planning can be an important tool to deliver affordable housing.

Providing more land for social housing development is surely not a solution, in a situation where there is an evident over-supply and very little land available. For starters, a thorough housing stock assessment needs to carried out to update existing studies and identify future housing demand targets (from various demographic statistics available) and gauge supply (from existing stock and development planning applications).

Secondly, a Geographic Information System (GIS) modelling exercise should be undertaken, mapping in three dimensions (possibility plot by plot) all urban settlements, also considering factors such as topography, strategic viewpoints, infrastructure, urban fabric elements and other possible constraints.

This would objectively identify opportunities for increasing building heights (by two or three floors) and promote the comprehensive development of these areas, solely on condition that prospective developers enter into planning obligations with the Housing Authority to secure a percentage of the new units as affordable housing.

These units would later be sold off at a subsidised price or rented through the authority's conventional practices. Without underestimating the problem of very fragmented property ownership characterising our built-up settlements, with a number of financial incentives (perhaps similar to the Compulsory Purchase Orders applied in the UK to spearhead regeneration), it is believed that consensus between all parties involved would be achieved given the win-win situation. Similar initiatives could be applied for developments of over 30 units or similar medium-to-large developments.

Such an initiative could have a number of benefits, such as regenerating the housing stock, producing high-quality buildings with an emphasis on energy efficiency, secure the advantages of comprehensive redevelopment, provide parking opportunities these lack and achieve a positive social mix, thus securing sustainable building settlements.

Moreover, such initiatives which would also attract EU funding, will greatly lessen pressure on undeveloped land, distribute wealth evenly and significantly help to achieve sustainability objectives.

As for building two golf courses, reclaiming land from the sea, connecting the islands via a bridge and installing wind farms in our most sensitive landscapes, high-rise buildings expose our inherent inferiority complex. In thinking we have something less than others around us, we tend to ignore our uniqueness and our invaluable treasures, in favour of more mainstream trends.

We'll soon understand that we can never compete with our neighbours by offering more of what they already have. Despite all this, concerns over expanding building boundaries, land availability, sustainability and perceived commercial gains have sparked renewed interest in high-rise buildings.

Unlike the United States, Shanghai and the United Arab Emirates (to name but a few), due to our geographically small low-lying islands, close-knit historic fabric, 6,000 years of history and road patterns, the role of high-rise buildings requires a rigorous and specific contextual approach.

Although I agree that there could be scope for some medium-to-high-rise buildings, I would be very cautious in surpassing the one we already have, given that it is clearly visible from all parts of the island. Indeed, the 23-storey Portomaso Tower is an example of the benefits that such towers could bring about in terms of mixed developments, open spaces, establishment of landmark buildings and legibility, but on the other hand, how many other potential sites in Malta can equal this in terms of size and lack of contextual constraints?

While emerging policy suggests 4,000 m2-sites in Pembroke, Marsa, Gzira, Qawra, Paceville, Sliema, Tigné and Luqa Airport would be adequate for such developments, I would advocate sites exceeding 7,000 m2 for structures exceeding 20 storeys, considering that 3,000 m2-sites proved to be quite tight for 12-storey buildings, with very little opportunities of landscaping and functional open spaces.

The 7,000 m2 threshold with appropriate plot ratio would secure adequate setbacks, distance between adjacent buildings, residential or user amenity, transport infrastructure, a mix of affordable housing within what is usually seen as elitist residences, landscaping and open spaces that make these buildings high quality, viable structures.

From pictures and footage I've seen of Shanghai, Dubai and to a lesser degree New York, my gut feeling is that their high-rise buildings are not surrounded by 'narrow' six to ten-metre carriageways, one metre uneven pavements and served by a public transport infrastructure that is far less than desirable.

Before we can look at issues, such as overlooking access, ill-suited highway infrastructure, public transport corridors, distances from neighbouring buildings, density, open spaces, visual impact, building orientation and skyline, I feel that if we evaluate the fundamentals, we'll see that the examples we seek to emulate have huge parcels of developable land, mechanisms for assembling land, support world economies and are metropolitan areas of millions of inhabitants. I feel that should we have a few high-rise buildings these would need to be prestigious landmark buildings, not half-baked experiments.

Affordable housing and high-rise buildings should not be taken lightly and policy-makers should not be carried away in what would seem like a real-life game of Monopoly. These subject areas have deep and widespread socio-economic implications.

We cannot afford to have as many vacant 20+-storey towers, as we have vacant showrooms lining our arterial roads. Likewise, we cannot afford to see the very fibre of our society and future generations struggling to cope with increasingly expensive loan repayments, with perhaps wider social divides.

Let us really understand the current situation before we proceed forth in order to have a vibrant community, safeguard the environment and at the same time quench a seemingly insatiable building industry. We need to take planning policy to the streets and apply it with responsibility, knowing that we are affecting people's lives and rediscovering urban planning's fundamental principles, society and sustainability, both environmental and economic.

Mr Bonello, who holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Management and Planning from the University of Central England, Birmingham, runs his own planning consultancy.

tobydais@maltanet.net

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