The problem with policies and regulations is that, no matter how positive they seem, it is hard to fully imagine their implications. One such policy regulates the rehabilitation of quarries. A positive measure, and yet its interpretation is being skewed beyond reason.

Rehabilitation is “the act of restoring something to its original state”. Indeed, the planning authority’s code of practice for quarry work and restoration quotes agriculture as the principal form of quarry restoration in Malta. Such sites offer the potential to accommodate inert construction waste that forms the bulk of our ever-growing Mount Magħtab. This infill would be overlaid by soil to provide valuable agricultural land.

Similarly, quarry rehabilitation projects available for public study in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia all point to the rehabilitation of these scars on the landscape by turning them into parks, fens, lakes, watersports facilities or reservoirs. So why is Malta the only country to propose building housing in quarries when the planning authority warned that quarries may not be suited for agriculture “due to the high temperatures and solar radiation reflected off the quarry faces”.

In the case to be decided at the planning authority today, it is not just ordinary housing that is being proposed to be built in the quarry at Wied il-Għomor but a far more sensitive home for elderly people.

Like the rest of the Western world, the Maltese health authorities have decided to provide care for all but the most infirm within communities rather than in large institutions or ghettos for the aged. Malta’s National Health Systems Strategy 2014-2020 declares: “There will be increased focus on empowering and encouraging communities to become more involved in the provision of informal care in the community and as near as possible to where people are residing and working.”

As the demand for care of dementia patients increases, it is relevant that “Good dementia environments are small-scale settings that subdivide the population into small clusters of eight to 15 residents”.

A home for the elderly in a quarry violates what has been stipulated above. Instead of remaining active in their communities, close to their families, friends and parishes, the elderly residents will be completely isolated. Far from being a “setting which is most suitable to their needs”, the home will be sunk into a quarry that will act as an unbearably hot suntrap in summer with the sun’s radiation reflected off the quarry walls. In winter it will be dark and damp, as the sun’s low trajectory will only reach the bottom of the quarry for a few hours a day.

This proposal effectively puts decisions about the care of the elderly into the hands of developers

What professional studies have been undertaken to justify such a development? This proposal effectively puts decisions about the care of the elderly into the hands of developers rather than doctors or medical design consultants.

Just as important is the impact of such a project on the existing residents of the area. This is no ‘ordinary’ valley, because, in 1999, Mepa gave it extra protection as an area of ecological importance and site of scientific importance. Being composed of permeable lower coralline limestone, this valley is very important in allowing the replenishment of the mean sea level aquifer. Any buildings here would impede the replenishment of this aquifer.

Besides the fact that the valley slopes are identified as having scientific importance in terms of hydrogeology and geomorphology, Mepa also described them as having significant aesthetic value.

The construction of a large complex within this valley would set a precedent that would inevitably lead to the issuing of permits for other buildings. Swieqi has already lost other valleys to development, and this permit would hasten the approval of pending planning applications for other ODZ developments in Wied Għomor and Wied is-Dis at Swieqi and Madliena, destroying the unique natural beauty and open spaces left in the area.

A complex for the elderly would also necessarily generate considerable traffic in an ODZ area, with thousands of extra vehicles entering and exiting the valley every day due to the movement of staff, services and supplies, residents and their visitors. This would require a widening of the valley’s very narrow roads and create more air and noise pollution.

In an island characterised by division, the fact that three local councils – those of Swieqi, San Ġwann and St Julian’s – have come together to fight an application signals the damage this project would cause.

In his Workers’ Day speech, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat declared that over the coming two years his government must show its environmental credentials and ensure that no ODZ land will be taken up.

The planning authority falls directly within the remit of the Prime Minister.

Therefore, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, along with the local councils involved, call on the planning authority to be consistent with the Prime Minister’s commitment and protect the interests of the community at large.

Astrid Vella is coordinator of Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar.

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