Mepa reform fails to tackle real issues, architects say

The Chamber of Architects is "deeply concerned" that the proposals for the planning authority reform fail to address the real issues facing the process of development.

While welcoming the release of the long-awaited blueprint document of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the chamber felt it was limited in its scope to administrative changes. Many of the changes had already been agreed upon between the chamber and the authority in the past but had yet to materialise.

It stressed that the true measure of Mepa's performance, and, consequently, of the reform itself, could only be more sustainable development and an improvement in the quality of the built environment for the benefit of all its users. The chamber said it would be making its formal submissions on the proposed document to the government in the coming days.

It reiterated its call for a culture change in which issues in the built environment were addressed, starting from the formation of a holistic guiding vision to transform the urban environment into a better place to live in. This vision must underpin the whole approach to planning policy and to urban governance in general.

It regretted that the notion of a better quality environment was absent in the reform document, which made no tangible proposals for an improvement in policymaking or in the quality of development. In this respect, the chamber called for a system of design review, which offered the opportunity for the quality of development (particularly that of scale or importance) to be assessed.

It welcomed the formulation of a strategic policy unit at the heart of government and augured this would drive, coordinate and harmonise policy direction across all sectors of government and not planning alone.

Many of the proposals within the blueprint were still vague and further discussions would be necessary to ensure the measures themselves and the way in which they were implemented reaped positive results and did not undermine the planning process.