What happened to Yvonne Zarb Cousin a couple of weeks ago is pretty damn appalling. For those of you who missed the story, I am referring to the woman who was rudely interrupted in her peaceful enjoyment of the Paceville home she has lived in and rented for the past 56 years. Demolition works carried out on a neighbouring building have rocked her property’s foundations, giving new meaning to Leonard Cohen’s immortal lyrics, ‘There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in’.
But it appears that more than sunlight got in. The recent rains for one thing. Water all too easily penetrated her living room and hall, causing major upheaval and damage (as these things invariably do).
Water seepage is always a great nuisance, even when no one is at fault. Who wants to live in a limbo of damp ceilings and walls, with the fear of a collapsing roof, and the need constantly to shift furniture and possessions?
What’s more, no one likes to be forced to move out of one’s home – not at 40 and certainly not at 81. But when the fault lies squarely on a third party, and a so-called professional contractor at that (one, according to the MDA president, with a good reputation), it’s utterly obscene. Stress levels go through the roof (yes, I know, that’s a tactless remark).
I have no way of knowing whether the contractor in question is going to sort out the lady’s problem, pronto. But I do have a very good idea about what should happen, and the sort of redress this woman – and others like her – have every right to expect and receive.
For one thing, they should not have to jump through legal hoops and all the attendant obstacles and expenses of a court case. It is common knowledge that appeals and delays always favour the party at fault. The ball is always in the injured party’s court – there’s no official body to fight his or her corner – and it’s not surprising that many don’t bother at all, or else throw in the towel at an early stage, preferring a ‘quieter’ life (yet another tactless remark).
It would seem that the whole point of the MEPA demerger was to give the environmentalists the middle finger and relegate them to the second division.
And while we’re talking noise, I have an idea that we’ll be hearing absolutely nothing from any official quarter regarding the issues I’m raising. The silence, as usual, will be deafening. Anyway, ‘demolition’ invariably implies ‘construction’, at least on this island. So let’s focus on that for a moment.
If the Planning Authority (PA) has no qualms introducing schemes permitting property owners to pay ‘sweeteners’ (fines and planning gains) to regularise illegal constructions not covered by permits, then I’m pretty sure it can find a way to make developers cough up when they break the law and disregard accepted codes of considerate behaviour. Their self-interest creates glaring health and safety hazards for others, wreaks havoc, causes injury and disturbance (including long-term mental health issues), and trashes the environment at large. It has got to stop. Where, one asks, is the ‘code of ethics’ touted by the MDA president? Can we have a copy, please?
I find it stupefying really that the PA is so amenable: that it’s willing and able to bend over backwards to help those “struggling to sell their properties because of illegalities” but does not appear to extend the same help, support and solace to those who have been living in their properties legally for years – that is to say, the ‘little people’ who have suddenly found themselves, their properties, their livelihoods and their health, at the mercy of contractors and cowboys.
Where, one asks, is the ‘code of ethics’ touted by the Malta Developers Association president? Can we have a copy, please?
The way I see it, if the PA is prepared to bend the rules rather than order the removal, wholly or in part, of three-quarters of illegal buildings in this country, then it should at least have very clear and specific rules about what happens when buildings being demolished (albeit legally) come to pose a very real danger to law-abiding citizens whose properties are suffering collateral damage.
There are countless demolition/development stories like this, and it’s not surprising. The PA has encouraged a ‘build now, sanction later’ way of doing things – a culture of wait-and-see. Developers hedge bets on what they can get away with. Dodgy encroachment, excavation and building are routinely rewarded – and all this before planning permission is granted or the appeal process completed. And who knows how many extra little ‘additions’, in excess of the permit, benefit in the same way, even from a blind eye or no eye at all?
Sadly, it’s always the person on the receiving end of the illegality who is shafted and short-changed; the person with no choice but to play ‘catch-up’ in the courts and there face the prospect of the PA’s retrospective ‘sanctioning’, effectively blowing the case right out of the water.
In the meantime, fortune favours the bullies and the bruisers, secure in the knowledge that their dubious work will be sanctioned post hoc, against payment, or not even. It’s like the mad trial in Alice in Wonderland that denies the logical, even-handed process of careful scrutiny and formal permission (or refusal).
It would seem that the whole point of the MEPA demerger was to give the environmentalists the middle finger and relegate them to the second division. And where is the Building Regulations Office in all this?
Even so, the recent sanctioning of the illegal structures at the Arka ta’ Noè Zoo in Siġġiewi would have annoyed me far less if the board hadn’t gone through with that ridiculous (and specious?) “educational visits” justification for waiving the fine. The issue at stake was planning law, not educational therapy, and the PA should have remained within its sphere of competence.
Besides, if the PA suddenly wants to take human welfare into account, it could start somewhere nearer home. Yvonne Zarb Cousin’s home.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com