Parliamentary Secretary Deborah Schembri thinks it’s a shame that a master plan that can raise the level of planning to new heights (quite!) has ended up as a partisan weapon in the arsenal of the Opposition party. Schembri is in good company. She’s not the only one angry; nor is she the only one who thinks this ‘master plan’ is a shame (or a sham?… parts of it at least).
Schembri knows as well as I do that presentation and packaging are everything. The old adage that justice should not only be done but should be ‘seen to be done’, carries with it a very important legal principle: namely that the slightest suggestion of bias should be enough to overturn a judicial decision. And this even when the same decision would have been reached anyhow.
So when you’ve commissioned the drawing up of a €300,000 draft master plan which you know – or can safely assume – is going to be hugely controversial and rub many people the wrong way (and drive quite a few others out of their homes), the very least you should do is ensure that no holes can be picked in it.
Schembri also knows that the Opposition is there to pick holes even when none exist. But when there are gaping holes from the word go – or even before – you should expect nothing less.
Personally, I think that the Opposition has given Schembri & Co. a very easy time, for reasons which are probably quite obvious. The construction industry has always wielded enormous economic (and political) clout in local affairs. Developers have always held both political parties to ransom. Is it going too far to suggest that parties need developers far more than developers need them?
I haven’t read the draft yet, at least not assiduously, which is just as well, because there’s now been a call for the plan to be scrapped in its entirety, and it’s hardly the sort of thing you want to have to plough through twice.
The first chink in the plan’s armour, if you want to put it that way, was the unfortunate appearance that bias or ‘conflict of interest’ might have been in play. The Mott McDonald Group – the consultancy firm hired to draw up the master plan – had initially provided advisory services to Mercury House, one of the nine developers set ultimately to benefit from a high-rise project in the aforesaid master plan. Even if the conflict were merely a matter of ‘appearances’ (which is the more likely scenario given that Mott McDonald employs 16,000 representatives whose remits are separate and disparate), it’s still the sort of bone any decent Opposition should chew. And quite rightly so.
The master plan seems dead in the water – the very coastal water it sought to exploit
More worrying perhaps is that the Parliamentary Secretary was none the wiser – a lamentable state of affairs arising out of her office never being informed of the dual role entrusted to Mott McDonald (a role which even the firm flagged up as a possible conflict of interest).
Meanwhile, the Planning Authority’s tacit acceptance of that role can be inferred from its dismissal of the matter as unworthy of consideration.
It is precisely things like this that explain why the Planning Authority continues to attract negative attention and bad publicity. Such clumsiness, frankly, fails to inspire confidence in, let alone bode well for, the PA chairman. And this is not the first ‘conflict of interest’ he has attempted to dismiss or trivialise. Not good at all.
Equally worrying is the realisation that the consultants did not ‘consult’ with either local residents or interested NGOs. They failed also to engage with Maltese law and public policy.
All this, incidentally, was the consequence of inadequate briefing at the Maltese end, not Mott McDonald’s own oversight. No surprises therefore that the master plan shows no recognition whatsoever of the 15-metre ‘minimum distance rule’ bestowing on the Maltese people uninterrupted and perpetual enjoyment of their islands’ foreshores and coastal perimeters.
What this amounts to is that no sale of such land can take place without being in breach of the Public Domain Act.
The master plan seems dead in the water – the very coastal water it sought to exploit.
Speaking of water, I feel last week’s storm should be a lesson to us all. It was Nature’s way of telling governments, present and future, and developers for good measure, that they should literally back off. Because when you take a building to the water, it will drink or swallow you up one day. Mother Nature will always have the last word and the last laugh.
These factors would be of great concern even if we weren’t talking €300,000 worth of draft plan. The fact that we are talking about just that makes the clumsiness and amateurishness of all this all the more serious. In a country where infrastructure is so poor and where €300,000 would go a long way towards improving roads and pavements, the commissioning of a draft master plan for the same amount, which could potentially end up scrapped or filed in the dustbin, is a right proper shame indeed.
You see, it’s just possible that a master plan for Paceville, properly handled and with everyone consulted, might have been a pretty good thing, given the way the area has ceased to be pretty in our very own lifetimes. Now, before it has even started, it looks uncomfortably and dangerously like a snatch-and-grab or an all-you-can-eat-buffet for the select view.
To add insult to injury, Paceville will be synonymous with mismanagement and dystopian ‘development’.
In all this mess, I feel most deeply for its residents, who may face years of uncertainty and blight in the place they were pleased to call home.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com