When I was growing up, the sun still warmed the beaches where we swam every day. There were no tower blocks looming overhead, turning the rocks into dank, damp expanses.
Perhaps there were fewer amenities. If you wanted to lie down in comfort, you could swing a towel over your shoulder and lie on it instead of having to slot yourself on one of the sun loungers ranked next to each other like hospital beds.
Most beaches back then did not have padded beach furniture, nail bars or restaurants offering 50 types of gourmet wraps but – get this – they were free and accessible to all – not enclaves for the favoured few.
Over the years, this has changed and many of the beaches have been gobbled up by concessions and commercial squatters. Slowly but surely, tracts of the foreshore have been colonised by hotels and give-aways to the private sector.
All over the island, what was once public land is now enjoyed solely by those favoured by the government of the day.
That is why when the long-awaited Public Domain Act become law, a couple of weeks ago; we thought it might mean that the tide had finally turned and that there would be a stop to the way the public legacy was being bartered away to opportunistic private interests.
If you had to go on the cross-party lovefest in Parliament you would have thought it was a watershed moment for the environment. Nationalist MPs Jason Azzopardi and Marthese Azzopardi heaped praise upon the newly appointed Minister for the Environment Jose Herrera. In turn, Herrera declared that MPs from both sides of the House had risen above their petty squabbles and come together for the good of the nation. The law came into effect and there was much mutual back-slapping.
Unfortunately, the authorities entrusted with observing the newly-enacted law fell at the first hurdle. Less than a week after the parliamentary jubilations, the Planning Authority had to decide on an application regarding the sanctioning of irregular development at Portomaso.
…total surrender of any form of informed consideration and possible mitigation measures in the face of illegal development
The case dates back to 1999 when the developers went ahead and built a clubhouse that was not in accordance with the permit, together with the addition of seven boathouses. Mepa’s Environment Planning Directorate had expressed its concern over “the encroachment of development on the coast” and the “obliteration of the buffer zone” between the pillbox and the clubhouse. A report by an environmental consultant hired by the developers states that the “extent of built development is significantly more extensive than envisaged in the permit”.
So, for 17 years the developers had encroached on public land, profiting from the unofficial extension of their development. There is no record of any payment made to the public coffers for this unauthorised take-up of land. It’s like Armier but a bit posher.
This was a golden opportunity for the Planning Authority to show that it would not countenance any contravention of the law regarding the public domain, despite the financial clout and prominence of the contravenors.
According to the new law, certain types of land and assets are automatically classified as being in the public domain. The foreshore, the coastal perimeter and the seabed fall within this category. The public has the right to use and enjoy these areas freely – something that clearly cannot be done if they are built over and cordoned off.
This seemed to be of no consequence to the PA board members. Even though the environmental NGO Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar had filed a judicial protest highlighting the breaches of the law, the board members gave it short shrift, with Timmy Gambin passing a remark that reflects the attitude of the board: “Do you really expect us,” he asked, “to pull down Portomaso so as to revert it to bare rock?”
That, in a nutshell, represents the pathetic reasoning of the board: the total surrender of any form of informed consideration and possible mitigation measures in the face of illegal development.
The message being given out is that the authority is helpless and inert when faced with illegal development. It won’t even consider the implications of the new law on its decisions.
Which begs the question of why it is there in the first place. If it’s simply a case of rubber-stamping all irregular development, with no proper regard as to how they could be breaching the provisions of the public domain law, why don’t we do away with it altogether?
As it is, the Planning Authority has simply confirmed fears that nothing has changed. It has proved that the Public Domain Act is just another paper tiger that will be routinely ignored.
So much for cross-party co-operation on environmental matters – it has only resulted in an ineffectual law and some greenwash.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt