Institutionalised vandalism

The principal cause of Malta's environmental deficit has been the construction industry, a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut which, despite its limited contribution to Malta's GDP, has made, and continues to make, large parts of our country look like Beirut - pock-marked roads, buildings semi-demolished, dust and detritus everywhere, a policy of "slash and burn".

The government's well-intentioned site management regulations to impose some modicum of order on contractors' work-sites cannot disguise that Malta looks like a shambolic building site, such is the intensity of construction under way. In the five years between 2002 and 2006, Mepa approved planning permits for the building of almost 38,000 dwellings - a record 10,500 in 2006 alone.

However, what is particularly disturbing about this construction frenzy has been the brazen manner in which Mepa, the regulatory authority, and the government have encouraged it. Nothing illustrates this better than the vote taken in Parliament on July 26 last year to extend the building development zones. The vote represented nothing less than an act of institutionalised vandalism on Malta's environment without parallel in the last 20 years. Those government members of Parliament who voted for the extension of the boundaries failed abysmally in their duty under article 9 of the Constitution to safeguard the natural landscape.

The extensions to the development zones were pushed through Parliament in the face of overwhelming public concern at what was being proposed. The proposals were based on the false premise that rationalisation was a pressing issue and that we needed more land for development. Quite the reverse. All logic pointed to a freezing of the development zones, not an extension.

It was illogical to extend building zones when, by the government's own admission, there was sufficient vacant land within the existing boundaries to build almost 100,000 "units", whereas the likely requirement for housing up to 2020 was well under half this figure. With, conservatively, almost a quarter of our housing stock lying empty and in islands which are severely over-developed, it was illogical as well as destructive to extend the zone - and ran directly counter to the Prime Minister's own declaration to give high priority to the environment.

The paramount environmental challenge facing Malta is the need to control construction development and the way we use and share this tiny land. This is the root cause of our environmental deficit. The impact of excessive land use aggravates all our other environmental problems, as well as undermining our vital tourism industry.

Yet, the regulatory authority, Mepa, to which we should look to exercise control and protection, has become an intrinsic part of the problem. In many instances, Mepa's perverse decisions have added to the overall picture of institutionalised vandalism. How else can one describe its decisions on Ramla l-Hamra, Fort Cambridge in Sliema and Pender Place in St Julians, to name but the most prominent? (I make no reference to Ta' Cenc or Hondoq ir-Rummien, where the structure plan may be about to be flouted, as these are still under consideration.)

At Ramla l-Hamra, Mepa gave a permit in an area of outstanding natural beauty that lies outside the development zone - in the face of the clear undertaking by the Minister for the Environment, following last year's controversial extension of the development boundaries, that no further development outside the permitted zoning would under any circumstances be allowed. Mepa justified this decision on the most specious grounds.

Fort Cambridge, Tignè Point and Pender Place represent institutionalised vandalism of a different kind - a crass misinterpretation when issuing permits for these developments of the spirit of Mepa's own mission statement "to pass on to our children a better country than we inherited. It is for this reason that we compare our environment to a treasure, something we place our energies in, to protect, care for and improve".

How can we reconcile these fine words - which guide their every decision - with the ugliness which has been permitted by the planning authority in the three-mile seaside stretch from Tignè Point to Spinola Bay, once consisting of elegant and handsome buildings now replaced almost entirely by faceless, high-rise apartments? (The same remarks could well be repeated in respect of Bugibba, Qawra, St Paul's Bay and Xemxija.) These make a mockery of Mepa's mission statement to beautify, not to uglify, our country.

The permits for Fort Cambridge, Pender Place and Tignè Point (the latter now nearing completion) represent in the starkest possible way all that is wrong with our built environment. They wilfully violate the organic texture of the town. They destroy the street line, the skyline and every other consideration of visual harmony. They intrude with their piecemeal development and create a ragged skyline. They are an affront to Malta's indigenous architecture. They show no respect for - and care less about - the grammar of mouldings and ornaments, the traditional wooden balconies or the nature of light and shade.

At Tignè Point, Fort Cambridge and Pender Place what we are getting with these monolithic, intrusive, high density foot-print buildings - too massive in scale for their surroundings and imposing too much on the existing infrastructure and previously peaceful neighbourhoods - is an example of architecture which destroys its surroundings rather than adapting its art to its surroundings.

Mepa has connived in this vandalism by allowing buildings that do not fit in to the townscape; that do not use an architectural language that puts a building into relation with its neighbours and the casual passer-by; that do not respect the realities of our climate and the human need for light and air in a world facing the consequences of global warming. They are creating a pale imitation of so many other foreign seaside resorts - characterless, sterile, modish, meaningless glass and concrete.

These three projects may be a symbol of urban virility to those who have commissioned them, vanity projects which will earn their developers a massive amount of money. But, they are the epitome of what is wrong with Malta's environment and the institutionalised vandalism that has led to their being given planning permits.

If the environmental deficit is to be reduced and overcome the balance of argument within, Mepa must be shifted firmly in favour of controlling further construction development. Instead of land development proliferation, it must be land and building conservation that direct and underpin Mepa's work.

The public interest is best served now by the imposition of restrictions. The best action is that which procures the greatest good for the greatest numbers. There have to be sensible checks and balances if institutionalised vandalism is to be reversed and a long-term re-balancing of the environmental deficit achieved.

Tomorrow: Valletta: A city betrayed.