Some development proposals, recently approved, have been justified by the defence that the proposals conform to the “policies”. The fact that the justification was not based on the intrinsic quality of the proposals but hid behind the “policy”, says much about the intelligence of the policies themselves.

While one policy protects (facades of) scheduled buildings from demolition, it often allows wholesale destruction of the interior.

More importantly, another policy “encourages” developers to add six or more floors above the same “protected” property. As a result, we kid ourselves that we are preserving our heritage, while, at the same time, promoting economic development.

Unfortunately, the net result is that we lose out on both counts.

A scheduled building, with a “carbuncle” sticking out of the top – to quote royalty – destroys the scheduled building, just as much as bulldozers would.

The final architectural result is invariably of poor quality. The final result would probably have been better had the property been demolished and a building of “heritage” quality erected instead.

The use of the word “heritage” in the last sentence reminds us that what we build today is the architectural heritage of tomorrow. Poor quality buildings and urban spaces are, it seems, what we are leaving for posterity.

It is not impossible to design a modern multi-storey development over an existing “heritage” building but one needs the talents of architects, such as Herzog and de Meuron, to create memorable architecture out of these situations – see the Elbphilarmonie in Hamburg and the Caixa Forum in Madrid – and not mere policies.

Planning has focused on the small print of what we can do and cannot do; the concept of what we should do is completely missing

Somewhere in the plethora of rules and guidelines, there ought to be a policy that requires development proposals of high architectural quality – and not just signed off by some star architect – and that proposals have to respect the urban context in which they are situated.

If there are no such basic policies, then what are all our planning policies worth?

Planning in Malta has focused on the small print of what we can do and cannot do; the concept of what we should do is completely missing.

There is a total lack of vision in “planning”, so that, in our collective minds, planning is equivalent to validating proposals against “policies”, whose implications were not even understood when promulgated.

The proposed, now approved, development on the Pietà waterfront, recently in the headlines, illustrates this.

The existing building is a scheduled example of 19th century villas, along what was once an elegant waterfront.

The rules say that it shall be preserved but the rules also allow us to build six/seven floors on top. Whether others in the terrace will follow suit or not, the urban context of the waterfront terrace of villas has been lost; so has the point of scheduling.

So be it, say some. The Pietà waterfront was dead and needed investment and redevelopment.

This is where planning vision comes in. What could the Pietà waterfront look like in the future? What could we plan it to be like?

Could we imagine a form of deve-lopment that allowed the land behind the villas to be developed, rather than create a Tower Road-like barrier?

Could we project to a future when traffic in Marina Street is reduced, or diverted, and the waterfront became a magnificent pedestrian promenade, with the villas worth millions for what they are, rather for the apartments on top?

So please, less policies and more vision.

(The article is written in the author’s personal capacity.)

Alex Torpiano is an architect and civil engineer.