In the daily routine of life, we very often tend to overlook certain trespasses, turn a blind eye or even force ourselves to accept the unacceptable, be that traffic violations, building infringements or inadequate consumer affairs. Tolerance can be a virtue but inertia is risky.
Thus, it is always a breath of fresh air when individuals, groups or organisations stand up to be counted on issues that irk so many but few, if any, care to do something about. NGOs are the more vociferous in this regard. Earlier this week, in fact, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar and Friends of the Earth Malta publicly criticised recent decisions to grant extensive tracts of prime coastal sites to developers.
Transport Malta is being sued for damages by the owners of a Kappara villa arguing that the construction of the flyover would drastically reduce their property’s value.
In Sliema, residents are asking the council to file a class action against the Planning Authority and the government “for adversely affecting their quality of life”.
The planned Townsquare project would include a 38-storey tower on the site of the former Union Club. It is being built on privately-owned land and has lain abandoned for years pending a high-rise policy, that was only issued last year and which inexplicably allowed tall buildings in the already overdeveloped Sliema peninsula.
A 40-storey hotel forming part of the Fort Cambridge development is being built on government land after an open tender in 2006. The winning bid was based on a detailed development brief for the former Crowne Plaza site, which set out clear guidelines on what it could include. Even at the time of the public consultation, there were howls of protest. Still, the government of the day ploughed ahead.
As concrete monsters rise higher and higher, property owners who paid very good money for their homes, possibly to the same people who are now planning the towering structures, find themselves plunged into darkness and other inconveniences.
At the meeting with the local council where they demanded legal action, Sliema residents raised concerns of traffic impact and overshadowing. They fear the two high-rise projects will attract more residents, traffic congestion and pollution in the already-crowded area.
A resident who spoke at the meeting was surely reflecting the views of many others, not just in Sliema, when he said: “If the council is really concerned with the amount of construction that has gripped Sliema, then it should take the government to task, especially seeing that politicians seem incapable of legislating against developers.” It was a serious indictment on decision-makers the statement made by a septuagenarian at the same meeting: “Let’s face it, Sliema is practically ruined. Now, with these new mega-projects, it’s going to be a nightmare.”
One government after another keeps paying lip-service to the environment, to healthy living, to greening the country and what have you. But, then, they shudder when they are faced by greedy developers whose only concern is making money not good planning.
Richard England, one of Malta’s prominent architects, could not have put it better when he said: “We can’t have one skyscraper there, another one somewhere else. If we do, the whole traffic system, the whole infrastructure, the whole economic system even, will collapse.”
If that were to happen – and, unfortunately, it may – we would end up living in what The Sunday Times of Malta columnist Claire Bonello called a land of vertical coffins.