Editorial

As one walks through Valletta one is struck both by the beauty of many of the buildings and the unsightliness of some others. It is now a cliché to say that City Gate and its environs are ugly and unworthy of Malta's capital. But walk beyond the entrance to the capital and there are many buildings that are elegant, well-maintained and worthy to be proud of. Some are owned by the government and others are in private ownership.

The tragedy is that alongside many of these are buildings that have been neglected for several years and lie derelict. These are an eyesore and, in many cases, dangerous. Many of them are privately-owned, often in multi-ownership.

The mayor of Valletta has drafted a bye-law, known as the Maintenance of Building Facades, which is awaiting publication in the Government Gazette. Its aim is to try and tackle this issue at several levels. The prime purpose will be to overcome the problem of tracing ownership of mainly privately-owned buildings, which have been abandoned or otherwise allowed to become a danger. Once ownership has been established, the police can oblige the owner to repair the building. The problem does not arise with government-owned properties because the mayor can turn to the Land Department to take action.

The mayor's proposed bye-law would allow for a notice to be fixed to unoccupied properties asking the proprietors to carry out the necessary works. If they fail to intervene within seven days, the council would do so on their behalf at the owners' expense, while sealing off the property until costs incurred have been reimbursed.

The mayor's plan goes further. The proposed bye-law proposes that façades of buildings in Valletta should be painted at least once every three years, with the owners being held liable to a daily fine until the job is finished. He also proposes that any abandoned buildings would be covered in a blank canvas and "artists or children could give vent to their creativity" on them, presumably by painting all over the canvas covers. Both these imaginative proposals may prove less workable in practice and may need re-visiting, which does not mean they should be ignored at the outset.

Of course, the Valletta mayor is absolutely justified in pursuing this kind of approach. Buildings left abandoned by irresponsible owners are not only ugly to look at and demeaning of the beauty of the capital city but also a threat to innocent passers-by.

The acid test is: Will the plan work?

The project clearly can only work if there is a determined approach to identifying all such properties and then establishing who owns them. This will take time-consuming administrative effort and sleuth work.

Once the buildings that need to be dealt with have been identified, the mayor will have to persuade the owners, through the police, to comply with the legal requirements to maintain their properties adequately. Alternatively, he will have to find the financial and other resources to repair and seal off such properties and then to proceed legally against recalcitrant owners to pay their dues for the work undertaken. In either case, it is not clear that he will have the additional resources to do this. Perhaps the central government can help.

Although the mayor's plans may be more difficult to implement than may appear at first sight, he should be given every encouragement and practical support possible to tackle a problem which, among many others, bedevils the appearance of the capital city.