A parliamentary committee will be requesting a moratorium on new planning policies and decisions, including where to site a new university in the south.
The Environment and Development Planning Committee on Monday discussed the draft Strategic Plan for the Environment and Planning (SPED), which is set to become Malta’s principal plan on the use of land, sea and space until 2020.
But yesterday, MP Marlene Farrugia, who chairs the committee, told Times of Malta that the discussion was pointless while the government was still taking decisions that went against the plan.
“We will be asking for a moratorium on further planning policies as well as decisions, such as the one on Żonqor, so all that is being prepared will fall under this strategic plan, which is supposed to give a vision for the country,” Dr Farrugia said.
The SPED was heavily criticised when it was launched for public consultation in March last year. Cultural and environmental organisations, as well as the Church Commission said it was a poor substitute for the 1992 Structure Plan which it replaces.
In the SPED we say we’re going to protect coastal areas; at the same time we plan to site a university on the coast at Żonqor when there are clear alternatives
Meanwhile, decisions were being taken that already clashed with the basics outlined in the plan, such as the need to protect the coast, Dr Farrugia said.
She pointed to the announcement on building a new university at Żonqor, Marsascala, as well as the numerous policies issued by Mepa over the last two years, the impact of which was not yet known.
“What will Malta look like when the people who can exploit these policies use the land? There is a great deal of fragmentation. A number of policies were issued, some of which clash directly with what is being said in the SPED,” she said.
She added it was pointless to talk about the need to protect the coast and then decide to site a university on coastal land in an Outside Development Zone.
“In the SPED we’re saying we’re going to protect coastal areas and at the same time we are planning to site a university on the coast at Żonqor when there are clear alternatives that can be used.”
In the plan, Żonqor is marked as an area of High Landscape Protection. Rural Objective (3) aims to guide development incompatible with urban uses and where alternatives are not possible, “to the rural area away from protected areas and areas of high landscape sensitivity, preferably on areas of containment, previously developed land or existing buildings”.
Dr Farrugia stressed the need for political will to implement the vision laid out in the SPED.
She is also leading a final push to have feedback provided during the consultation stage reflected in the document before it is discussed in Parliament.
Din L-Art Ħelwa was one of a number of organisations to submit feedback. On Monday, its consultant Petra Caruana Dingli complained that none of its suggestions had been included in the document. Yesterday she praised Dr Farrugia’s efforts and said the plan as presented “symbolises the way the environment always pulls the short straw”.
“First, government published the objectives with a view to drafting a full strategy and then, after a while, the government turned around and informed us the objectives are now the plan itself. This is just not serious and shows how the environment is consistently pushed aside to make way for other priorities,” Dr Caruana Dingli said.
The government did not publish a new plan but redistributed the objectives the former administration released in 2012 in preparation for the plan, which would usually be accompanied by a number of studies.
Nationalist Party planning spokesman Ryan Callus said that this made a mockery of the Structure Plan.
“No effort whatsoever was made to undertake the necessary studies, with the result that the proposed draft relies on outdated data. This confirms again that the environment is last and capitalism first in the government’s priority list,” he said.