Residents vs rest of the country

Once again, battle lines have been drawn and the citizens of Malta plunge into the fray. This time the national bone of contention is the residential parking scheme which is are to be introduced in several localities in Malta.

The somewhat innocuous report about a scheme intended to alleviate parking problems in these towns has infuriated the good denizens of other localities and they have swarmed to online forums to (a) tell us that they absolutely hate the concept of residential parking zones, and (b) to insult the residents of towns where the scheme will be implemented.

While many of the objectors vented their anger by flinging a flurry of exclamation marks (instead of arrows, I presume) and online comments in furious uppercase letters, a certain Joseph Borg took it upon himself to embark upon a Constitutional crusade. He intends to file a lawsuit to have the scheme declared illegal as it discriminates between residents and non-residents.

This is not the first time that Borg has challenged residents' parking schemes. The first time round he filed a case contesting a parking ticket issued by the Pietà Council as he was a non-resident parked in residents' parking zone. The court had found that the local council did not have the necessary permit from the ADT to implement the scheme, and so declared the scheme illegal.

The court also indicated that reserved parking zones could be justified in certain cases where it was in the public interest to impose limitations. Although the council's action was deemed to be unlawful, the main reason for this was the way that it had gone ahead and enacted the bylaw setting up the scheme without the ADT's go-ahead. Nonetheless, Borg must have felt emboldened by his success to enter into the breach once more to quash this most dreadful imposition of residential parking zones.

Borg is also passing a petition around. No doubt, it will be signed by the person who suggested that the councils of localities without a residential parking scheme "could form a federation whereby all residents in these councils can park in each others' locality... except Slimizi and Ta' Xbiex residents of course". And the one who inexplicably saw the parking scheme as a sign that Malta was turning into a police state.

Another keen supporter would be the reader who felt that the whole thing spelt doom for the country. "MAMMA MIA What a situation !!!!!!!! GOD HELP US !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", she typed. And we shouldn't forget the aggrieved commenter who reminded us that it is not only the "Slimizi" who pay taxes. "Sorry to inform these puliti", he added "that even the man from Birzebbugia has an absolute right to park at Sliema to visit his family. The time for snobbish ideas has long gone".

The two constant themes throughout the discussion - if you could call it that - was the supposedly preferential treatment being afforded to the residents of some localities, and the call for them to put up or move out if they didn't like the situation.

The latter is a peculiar form of argument made by people who would have you remove yourself from a nuisance instead of having the nuisance seen to.

So if you don't fancy illegal hunting, you have to up and emigrate instead of seeing that it is stopped. Are the noisy petards getting on your nerves? Go elsewhere. Incessant bell-ringing? That's your problem, you should have known what you were getting into. Blocks of flats with inadequate parking facilities being built nearby? It's your pigeon - move to somewhere in the country.

Adopting the "lump it or leave it" approach would mean that no improvements are made as people simply move to another place every time a problem crops up. This kind of reasoning does not take into account the fact that relocating from town to town is not easy or practical.

But back to the charge that residential parking zones discriminate in favour of residents. Objectors claim that since all drivers pay the same amount of road tax, they have an equal right to park in all localities without any restrictions whatsoever. Any limitations, they say, would constitute discrimination.

Well, that's right - to a point. If certain towns are affected by particular circumstances - such as a very high influx of traffic with the attendant fumes and inconveniences - then it is only logical that residents should be afforded special treatment to alleviate their hardship in some small measure.

Do we begrudge the residents of Valletta their reserved parking zones when they have had to move their vehicles for every function and ceremony taking part in the capital city? Shouldn't the residents of Floriana be able to park in the vicinity of their homes, when the place has had to act as a car park for the Valletta overspill?

And why shouldn't Sliema residents be helped out a little bit, when much of their daily discomfort is due to non-residents who take up parking places for long hours when they can easily commute to their place of work, as others do to Valletta?

Even if non-residents cannot empathise at all with the inconvenience which residents of traffic-dense localities suffer, there are legal precedents which show that residential parking zones are not discriminatory.

When the setting up of such a scheme was challenged on these grounds in the US, in the County Board of Arlington v Richards case, the Supreme Court had held that: "To reduce air pollution and other environmental effects of automobile commuting, a community reasonably may restrict on-street parking available to commuters, thus encouraging reliance on car pools and mass transit.

"The same goal is served by assuring convenient parking to residents who leave their cars at home during the day. A community may also decide that restrictions on the flow of outside traffic into particular residential areas would enhance the quality of life there by reducing noise, traffic hazards, and litter.

"By definition, discrimination against non-residents would inhere in such restrictions. The Constitution does not outlaw these social and environmental objectives, nor does it presume distinctions between residents and non-residents of a local neighbourhood to be invidious."

I wonder how that will go down with the people fulminating against the privileged puliti. They'll probably start circulating a petition to ship them off to Arlington where residential parking zones are the norm and not grounds for yet another battle royal.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt