Antics of a tightrope walker

Many architects and developers are perturbed by recent decisions taken by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority board, decisions that cast doubt on Mepa’s reliability and consistency.

I am referring to at least two decisions that ignored the authority’s commitments emanating from approved outline permits, and another one that went diametrically opposed to a ministerially endorsed Mepa action plan.

At the outset, I feel I have to declare that I have no direct or indirect interest in these cases, and what worries me is the unorthodox way in which the Mepa board is taking decisions, reflecting the erroneous idea that the end justifies the means.

I understand that there might have been valid planning reasons why the outline permits should not have been issued in the first place and why the action plan was flawed. But this does not mean Mepa is now justified in ditching its legal obligations and going back on its commitments.

One of the reasons Mepa was set up in the first place was to ensure that decisions are transparent, fair and technically based; giving a reliable level of certainty in the issue of building permits. Whenever the authority decides to ignore its own commitments, it imbues uncertainty, with negative economic effects.

If the Mepa board now feels that the outline permits in question should never have been issued, it should investigate why they were, and take any action against whoever put it in this situation. To tighten its lips, close its eyes to what happened in the past, ignore glaring legal incongruities, disregard its commitments, and act as if nothing untoward is happening, is a dangerous tightrope walking act.

In the case of the ignored action plan, the situation is even worse. Mepa first issued permits for applications that were in line with this action plan but later refused other permits even though the applications were in line with this action plan! How can the authority explain – let alone justify – this way of doing things?

The action plan might well have been a pre-electoral concession that should never have been made, but disregarding it in this way is not on. So is this mess the result of political interference, one way, before the election and political interference the other way after the election?

This seems to be the only credible – some might say incredible – explanation. Yet Mepa was abusing its powers when it decided not to follow its own action plan.

When the Planning Authority (PA) – later metamorphosed to Mepa – was set up, the idea was to separate policy from day-to-day approval of permits. Policy was always subject to the government of the day; that is why the action plan became applicable only when the responsible minister officially endorsed it. Once this policy was established, no further political input was deemed necessary.

It seems, however, that things have changed. While the political administration refuses to ‘interfere’ in Mepa’s processing of small irrelevant permits, it seems there is a hidden political hand that directs the authority in certain particular cases with the aim of placating the moaning brigade for self-serving political reasons.

When the PA was set up, the Labour opposition accused the government of the day of erecting a screen (paravendu) behind which it will be taking decisions on building permits while appearing as if it is doing nothing of the sort.

I was surprised by such an accusation: this was certainly never the intention behind the setting up of the PA. Perhaps I was somewhat naïve. As Guido de Marco often points out, of all the foreign powers that influenced Maltese culture throughout our chequered history the most effective were the Byzantines – so effective that we do not even talk about Malta ever having been part of their empire.

I have always been a straight-forward guy and the Byzantine way of doing things was never my style.

This way of doing things also risks putting Mepa in a situation where it could be legally responsible for damages. But there’s a long way to go before it comes to that.

I understand that appeals have been made against these decisions and therefore applicants have to wait for the appeals board ruling – only a matter of two or three years (!) – until further legal action can be envisaged.

The problem of damages resulting from blatant Mepa illegalities leads one to ask about who will in the end fork out the money. Not the Mepa board, of course, but the common citizen – an incredibly ironic situation, considering that these damages are the result of Mepa’s disdain for the rights of common citizens.

Fees for Mepa applications have sky-rocketed recently on the grounds that applicants for permits have to pay for the service given by the authority – even though with the planning-environment mishmash that Mepa has become, this means that permit applicants are expected to pay for expenses that have absolutely nothing to do with their applications, such as Mepa’s environmental responsibility to monitor air quality.

Will permit applicants now be asked to chip in money to pay for Mepa’s short-sighted mistakes?

micfal@maltanet.net