I was impressed by the proposal made in the House of Representatives last week by Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco that the owners of scheduled properties should enjoy tax rebates commensurate to the maintenance and upkeep of these same properties. It was the first time, as far as I know, that any similar proposal was made. The logic of such a proposal is admirable. This is not just a law to favour the rich but one which in the not-so-long run will benefit the nation.
Not having this law or anything similar to it has extracted a terrible price when one thinks of all the properties that since the 1970s were destroyed because the owners, hampered by crippling death duties at one point and impossible succession laws the next, have had to offload properties to the tender mercies of the developers and contractors. The list is endless.
In Sliema alone, the 19th and early 20th century houses and villas that gave Sliema its unique character simply do not exist anymore. Villa Bonici, Hunter's Palace and Villa Trigona in central Sliema, the beautiful Torreggiani villas on the Sliema Front and the rows of bay-windowed houses have all disappeared to be replaced by apartment blocks that remain the most recherché on the island. The reversal started when it was practically too late. The momentous decision that decreed that Anġlu Xuereb was to restore and rebuild Capua Palace was one that stemmed the tide of destruction, which till that time had wreaked total havoc on our urban environment.
What has happened now, which is why Dr de Marco has made this proposal, is that because these buildings cannot be touched they have become a huge liability to their owners; especially when they are inherited between an ever-increasing number of siblings and cousins. Many properties are undivided and the joint owners, the more numerous they become, the more their individual expectancies rise. This creates an impossible situation and these undivided properties are hence badly maintained, if at all. Valletta is one of the worst hit.
The government cannot afford to buy out all these properties and while, mercifully, a few are bought by legal and accountancy firms and lovingly restored to their pristine glory, there simply aren't enough of these to rehabilitate Valletta. Therefore, as the law is at present, there are far too many scheduled properties that have become like millstones round the necks of their owners.
If the government had to put the mechanisms into place that will concretely help the owners keep and maintain these properties it is our environment that will benefit. Our ambience has been systematically mutilated over the past four decades. Our short-sighted greed and philistine disrespect for the past has caused more irreversible damage than all the bombs of WWII. This had to stop and Mepa is always, at times controversially, doing its level best to preserve what's left of our environment. What with the NGO vigilantes on the lookout in the streets, very little escapes the net. Yet, this is no time to relax.
I strongly believe that, as much as possible, the damage must be contained and, in as many instances as is practical, reversed. For instance, by putting a financial scheme in place that will help owners of modern apartments to replace their aluminium sliding widows with more traditional wooden balconies and shutters, our environment will improve. This is money that is wisely spent as it is precisely Malta's unique ambience that brings tourists to us in their millions and makes us so different from other Mediterranean islands.
There is no other island that has such a micro-cosmopolitan air than Malta. Thanks to our harbour, the Order and the British, our nationhood was guaranteed long ago. We have sadly been too cavalier with our heritage and now we are taking stock and realising that we have lost far too much. Proposals such as that made by Dr de Marco will go a long way to stop the rot while encouraging the owner to use the property for some other purpose than to demolish and sell as building plots. Such a proposal will start a trend which may, when the vitally needed Museum of Modern Art is eventually created, encourage owners of important works of art to loan or even donate important works to the nation in return for tax and succession duty benefits. Other countries such as the US have put these into practice ages ago. The result is the MOMA and the Metropolitan, among many others all over America.
And who will be the eventual beneficiaries of such schemes? It is us, our children and our children's children who will be able to appreciate our collective heritage, which did not stop in 1798 but which continues to the present day despite it being largely unacknowledged. It is, of course, not enough to put the fiscal mechanisms into place but the physical buildings to house national collections must be established while more historic houses like Casa Rocca Piccola must be given full support while allowing the owners to enjoy their own ancestral properties and chattels while sharing them too. This has been the trend all over Europe that was implemented with great urgency after Great Britain, for instance, realised that it was losing irretrievable treasures for the nation by forcing the owners to flog Rembrandts and Canalettos to pay death duties.
Obviously, this is a very delicate job and it must be handled by a properly set-up board that is equally cognisant of the value of artistic and architectural worth as it is in the byzantine art of taxation. It is only in this way that we will guarantee our heritage for generations to come.
kzt@onvol.net