Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco has taken an initiative to exempt tourists staying in Sliema hotels from the controversial residential parking scheme if they are driving a rented car.
The parking scheme, which has not yet been implemented, will slash the number of parking bays available for non-Sliema residents by 50 per cent. The initiative steered by the local council has met with a chorus of disapproval, the first to complain being business owners and hoteliers.
To counter this, Dr de Marco launched discussions with the Malta Transport Authority (ADT) in an effort to exempt tourists driving hired cars from the residential parking rules.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Dr de Marco confirmed that discussions were underway with the aim of striking the right balance between the needs of residents and those of the tourism industry.
"The idea behind the discussions is that a tourist residing in a Sliema hotel and making use of a rented vehicle should be considered as a Sliema resident for the duration of his stay in that hotel.
"We need to find a balance between the needs of residents while addressing the concerns being raised by the commercial and tourism operators in the area."
Sliema is one of 19 towns and villages where reserved parking zones for residents have been approved by the Malta Transport Authority (ADT).
According to the residential parking scheme being proposed by the local council, residents can park in 50 per cent of the parking bays along any given street without any time restrictions.
The rest will have a two-hour restriction between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., seven days a week.
Where parking is available on both sides of the street, one side will be reserved exclusively for residents. On the other side, both residents and visitors may park but the latter will have a two-hour time restriction. Dr de Marco's initiative comes at a time when the ADT plans to expand the scheme to cover all the town's 117 roads.
The proposed scheme was shot down by the Sliema Residents Association which argued that it would not do anything to solve the town's parking problems.
It said the scheme was "a rather lopsided fix that falsely appeared to favour residents but instead seemed to be another half-baked and ill-considered short-term solution".
Several residents also complained that the scheme might solve their parking problem but would create an even bigger headache for visiting relatives, who would have to shift their cars every two hours.
Residents of other localities have also complained, saying that since they pay the same road tax everybody should receive similar treatment.
This is the battle cry of Swieqi resident Joseph Borg, who plans to take the issue to court on the basis of discrimination.
In 2007, Mr Borg obtained a court decision in his favour which declared the residents' parking scheme in Pieta illegal because the council had not obtained the ADT's approval.
But speaking to this newspaper last week, Sliema's new mayor Nikki Dimech defended the scheme and insisted the residents were on his side. He said the proposed scheme needed fine-tuning and hoped to find a "win-win solution".
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com