The Planning Authority is still chasing contraveners for costs incurred on nearly half of all the enforcement action taken since 2013, official figures show.
An authority spokesman told this newspaper that the authority had spent some €380,000 on direct action on irregular developments in the past four years.
Earlier, the prime minister told Nationalist MP George Pullicino in reply to a parliamentary question that the authority was still chasing some €160,000 in costs from unscrupulous developers.
The authority takes action against developers when they refuse to comply with enforcement notices. Once direct action (mostly demolition work) is carried out, contraveners are obliged to pick up the bill.
Legal action is only used as a last resort. Our aim is to always get people to comply
Johann Buttigieg, executive chairman of the authority told Times of Malta that contraveners were given ample time to pay their dues, but many still chose to ignore it.
“Legal action is only used as a last resort. Our aim is to always get people to comply. Once in court the procedures are lengthy and we have to follow the full process as any other entity whether private or public,” he said.
Removing illegal development comes at a hefty price for the Planning Authority but the amount yet to be recouped is a far cry from what it once had been.
Back in 2014 this newspaper had reported how the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (since replaced by the Planning Authority) had to recoup €750,000 for past direct actions.
To address the matter, a team had been set up within the enforcement directorate charged exclusively with recouping money owed to the authority because of enforcement initiatives. Every year enforcement officers carry out thousands of inspections on ongoing development projects to ensure they comply with permit conditions.
Mepa received more than 2,000 reports and complaints, an average of more than 40 a week, on alleged irregularities last year.
Last year the Planning Authority had a backlog of more than 8,000 pending enforcement cases, some dating back to the early 1990s, on which no action had yet been taken.