What sense would it have made to give environmental organisations a right of representation on the Planning Authority board and then deny them a right of appeal against board decisions? Luckily for the environmental organisations and for civil society, the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal saw the absurdity of the PA’s argument and decided against its stand in the issue over the proposed building of the Townsquare and Mrieħel high-rises.
The review tribunal, adopting what was, after all, generally seen as a common-sense approach, dismissed the PA’s argument that none of the parties had the right to appeal as they had been represented on the board that had approved the application. All the parties opposing the proposed building of the monstrous high-rises were elated at the review tribunal’s ruling. But why should environmental organisations and civil society go through such battles to protect the environment? On whose side is the PA on exactly, anyway?
The absurdity is even more glaring in the light of the fact that, as it happens, the chairman of the Environment and Resources Authority, Victor Axiaq, who is a PA board member, was not even present at the hearing when the Townsquare development was approved. So, not only was the PA’s legal argument false but the regulator seemed all too happy to compound its disregard to the people’s pro-environmental sentiments even further when it failed to take into account the ERA chairman’s absence in its argumentation.
Din l-Art Ħelwa found it utterly reprehensible that it had even become necessary for the review tribunal to intervene when the right to appeal was trumpeted by the government a year ago as one of the benefits of the new planning legal framework. If the PA intends carrying on in the way it is doing now it should at least have the decency of altering its mission statement.
Providing “a better quality of life through a sustainable land use planning system” is what the new PA promised at the beginning of its new life after the demerger. By no stretch of the imagination will overdevelopment, the construction of high-rises, the pulling down of townhouses or the building up of parts of the coastline will improve the quality of life. The contrary is the case.
Other than corruption, sleaze and bad governance, rampant disregard to the environment has become one of the people’s major concerns. In sharp contrast to what the Nationalist Party is promising to do if elected, as shown by its set of extensive proposals just launched, the environment under Labour has come under constant attack. If it is not Żonqor that raises the people’s anger, it is the proposed high-rises which, if allowed to be built as planned, will ruin much of the landscape.
Malta’s historic buildings and townhouses, its traditional streetscapes, the massive bastions, auberges, palaces and urban village cores (or what has remained unspoilt of them) are what make the island’s cultural heritage in stone so distinctive, so different to other places that have gone for the kind of development that goes completely against their traditional characteristics.
Is it wise to replicate in Malta what has been done in Dubai, or elsewhere, for that matter? Much harm has been done through the building of ugly developments. Must the country continue destroying what it should cherish and preserve? Far too many places have been disfigured already through lack of foresight by successive administrations. Is it not worth protecting, and caring, for the distinctive Maltese features that remain?