Sustainable economic development is crucially dependent on a proper balance being struck between economic resources and the environment.

Economic growth on its own without environmental sustainability is not progress. For real progress to be achieved economic output must enable families to improve their quality of life without destroying the things people value, such as Malta’s unique, though increasingly limited, open countryside and coastal areas.

By virtue of its wide responsibilities for every aspect of the built and rural environment, Mepa exercises the greatest influence on our quality of life. It is supposedly committed to safeguarding land use within the planning laws laid down and ensuring the protection of the environment to meet society’s needs and Malta’s future commitments.

It is meant to be the bulwark against land abuse and to act independently of government where specific development decisions are concerned.

But this whole framework of planning governance has been thrown into question not only by the country’s experience of the past two years but also by specific concerns over the American University of Malta (AUM) project being actively promoted by the Prime Minister personally.

Mepa’s conduct since 2013 has seriously called into question its role in ensuring planning due process is followed.

The promise to set up an environmental directorate as a separate entity to the Planning Authority – ostensibly to give the environment its own independent voice when it comes to making planning decisions – has still not materialised. One cannot but suspect that such a voice would not be welcome. The so-called Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development is a mere cipher, neutered on the environment and incapable of influencing sustainable development.

All roads lead to the Prime Minister personally, who appears ready to sacrifice Malta’s long-term environmental quality for economic gain. While the concept of attracting foreign universities to set up campuses in Malta is commendable – the establishment of the prestigious Barts Medical College in Gozo is a good example – and could, in the longer term, open up a new and profitable income stream for Malta, the AUM, proposed for development on a massive stretch of land at Żonqor Point, suffers from a number of serious flaws.

Whether the AUM, owned by the Jordanian Sadeen Group, a development company that will be advised on curricular matters by De Paul University, will be able to satisfy Malta’s high quality assurance standards for accreditation is still to be assessed. But it is perfectly clear that, environmentally, the planned 91,000-square metre site in an outside development zone area is in direct contravention of Malta’s existing planning laws. For the Mepa CEO to pronounce that such a project is “acceptable” in flagrant breach of its ODZ status without carrying out the full-blown environmental and social strategic impact assessments that a project of this magnitude demands beggars belief.

The fact is that the AUM project is only financially viable if it is built on ODZ land since this is far less costly to purchase than land in the development zone. In effect, therefore, Mepa is conniving at a deal by expanding Malta’s development zones simply to encourage the construction of a new development without giving the consideration that it is duty-bound to do to weigh the environmental consequences, including costs, or examining other options for achieving the AUM’s needs. In doing so, it is flouting the planning laws for which it is ultimately responsible. Mepa fiddles while the environment burns.

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