Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the countryside, Astrid Vella outlines the challenges now facing Urban Conservation Zones in village cores
When we first set up Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar three years ago, everyone – including many environmentalists– was convinced that the environment was not a public priority, still less a political one.
Two national protests later, the rate of people who considered the environment a voting issue shot up from 1 to 11%.
Nowadays, people are realising how air pollution, excessive traffic and over-development are impacting their comfort zones and their health, while questioning why, with over 75,000 vacant properties, we should be gobbling up more precious open space to build yet more developments destined to remain empty.
Catching onto this, the media is giving much more attention to environment and heritage issues than ever before, and so we are better informed on such matters.
It has become a political necessity to take the environmental lobby into account, and people are finally beginning to realise that it is their EU right to be consulted on environmental matters that affect them. Nonetheless, even as awareness grows there remain areas which are under direct threat from over-development.
Now that it’s become more difficult to develop sites in the countryside, developers are targeting the few remaining large gardens within the building scheme, which are usually the gardens of old heritage homes.
Such a development was thwarted within the private gardens of Villa Bologna in Attard, but other properties and gardens are in imminent danger such as Villa Frieres in Spinola, Villa Madama in Balzan, and Villa Buleben in Zebbug, not to mention Villa Bonici in Sliema, which is earmarked for the construction of up to 23 high-rise blocks in an already over-built zone.
These gardens are very often the last remaining essential green lungs in our towns and villages which have already been ruined by MEPA regulations which allowed buildings in urban conservation areas to rise to four floors and more, resulting in a rash of apartment blocks ruining the character of our loveliest villages.
Other areas such as Bormla have fallen victim to misguided housing policies, whereby the bulldozing of priceless old areas under the guise of ‘slum clearance’ repeats the same tragic mistakes that we saw happening in post-war Valletta.
And in spite of repeated pledges to protect the countryside and heritage buildings, scandalous permits continue to surface allowing apartment blocks to be built in virgin countryside, overlooking prehistoric temples and in the Qormi Knights’ Armoury complex.
Unfortunately, lack of resources and lack of political will has meant that MEPA has failed to keep up with scheduling and protection of these properties and areas, while flawed decisions by the DCC boards have ensured the destruction of a good part of our communal heritage.
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