Quick. Grab a piece of paper and draw a cat.
It’s simply mad that a blind eye is turned on boathouses balancing on top of each other without a permit, a hazard to health and safety- Kristina Chetcuti
I bet you’ve just drawn two circles, one on top of each other, two triangles for pointy ears and then added a tail for good measure. I know I would.
Same thing if someone asks me to draw a house; I’ll draw a square with a triangle on top, then add four windows, a door and a chimney. Even though I have never in my life lived in anything which looks remotely like a Peter-and-Jane illustration.
We all have a stock of stored images – mostly from childhood books – which we tend to bring up automatically. Here’s another one: when young, I had a friend who used to, all the time, mention this ‘boathouse’ her family had in Għadira.
For a long time I was really envious, imagining her in a little wooden hut, striped red and white or yellow and blue, like the ones which lined the beaches in England. I could blame it on Enid Blyton perhaps, because till then I had not yet set foot on any British beach.
When years passed and as a teenager I chanced upon a real Maltese boathouse in Armier I was… aghast. My perfectly harmonious picture was totally shattered to be replaced by shabby shoddy shanty shacks. Tiny, windowless concrete boxes – some merely pimped-up shipping containers – with water and electricity supplies, connections to the public sewer lines; and air-conditioning units outside.
Oh, not a boat in sight.
The majority are illegally built on public land. And it’s public land no more. I’ve since been to two ‘boathouse villages in Armier and in Ġnejna. All eyesores of the greatest magnitude. They even organise their own feasts – with the ‘streets’ lined up with festoons, statues adorning the ‘square’ and evening processions and Sunday Mass.
I wonder what the Church Environment Commission has to say about this – for technically the boathouse owners are showing a sinful disrespect to the environment.
In any case, whenever I found myself strolling in these hamlets, I always find that residents eye me up and with their steely glares beseech me to backtrack.
“I do what I want here, and the police can never stop me,” boasted a resident once, when I pointed out that he was parking illegally on a sand dune.
Another time, in Ġnejna while walking my dog, I was warned to “take another route or you’ll be sorry for that mongrel of yours”.
These places breed irreverence and bullies, so the threatening letter sent to Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Michael Briguglio warning him to clam up, was not surprising.
The boathouse villages are very ghettoey. Once, on a work assignment, I tried to interview a few of these boathouse people. Some were sitting on the doorstep, others were inside cooking on their electric grillioso. Each time I asked them if they were owners or if they lived there, all I got were blank faces or muttering of “Hmm”.
Only one resident in his 60s, with an Elvis hair-do and lounging on his ‘terrace’ in Y-front panties, was willing to tell me that his boathouse (originally a natural cave, now with a concrete extension) had been in the family’s heirloom for 50 years.
It was, of course, not purchased. His grandfather squatted in the cave long enough for him to claim it as his territory. If he had to sell it now – illegally, of course – he’d get something like €50,000 at least. And there are always willing buyers – despite the fact that they might be pulled down any minute.
But actually they won’t ever be knocked down. It’s very clear that no political party will ever really take action because each boathouse is a family of votes. And so it’s very convenient – for both main parties – to overlook the fact that it’s illegal for anyone to grab a piece of land, make it their own, build an eyesore and spend the summer living there.
It’s simply mad that a blind eye is turned on boathouses balancing on top of each other without a permit, a hazard to health and safety, and then when I purchased my (legal) apartment, Mepa did not want to issue compliance because the car lift in the apartment block was not yet installed and it was considered ‘a health and safety risk’.
The problem here is beyond Mepa. It needs political leaders with guts, who are not afraid to bulldoze these blots on our landscape. Each owner can then be given a little rudimentary wooden beach hut like those on the British beaches. They would have to pay a rent, dismantle it in September and part of their task would be to ensure that the beaches are kept clean.
If only for once, my doodle became a reality.
krischetcuti@gmail.com