Given the experiences of the past, expecting a magical panacea from the proposed MEPA reform is unrealistic, Harry Vassallo argues
Even as it came into being in the early 1990s, the new planning regime that gave us a Planning Authority and a Structure Plan left wide open loopholes as wide as barn doors.
From day one it remained possible for those who had acquired a development permit under the previous regime to keep it alive by paying a renewal fee. Years later some development would suddenly mushroom unexpectedly in clear violation of all the cherished precepts of the new planning bible. That loophole made nonsense of the whole exercise.
There were others, many others. Without a Local Plan in place anywhere, the broad general rules of the Structure Plan remained subject to elastic interpretation. In many cases, when it came down to specifics, the regulator found it was armed only with the old rules under the code of police laws and some rules governing height limitations by area. Demolitions carried on apace with hardly a rule to bar their way across village cores. The effect has been devastating across the country.
Early on, developments such as Busietta Gardens in Madliena wrecked Wied id-Dis as well as the last shreds of credibility the Planning Authority enjoyed. While we all saw a multi-storey development bang in the middle of scenic valley, for the developers and for the Planning Authority there had been no violation of the rules, because the permit had been applied for on the road at the high end of the development. The rest somehow qualified as a very expensive multi-storey basement.
Prior to the advent of the Planning Authority, development outside development zone was largely illegal. Those who felt sufficiently protected from the effects of the law simply built their dream villa and hoped for the best seeking comfort in the thought that if they hung onto their prize long enough, they would eventually be granted a permit. Most of them were right.
With the Planning Authority in place, matters should have become tougher for the so-called cowboys. In fact, the cowboys just changed their tactics. Instead of building and grimly hanging on. The applied for a permit and never gave up. On the first refusal they appealed. Then they reapplied and on a second refusal they asked for a reconsideration while making some minor adjustment to their original application. In fact it was wise to apply for the impossible in order to have plenty to concede. Eventually a permit was issued.
Since all this took many years to accumulate, it was years before the PA and its successor MEPA came to be thoroughly despised, and the “Vote George, get Lorry” realisation took hold.
All said and done, some loopholes will always exist, and some cheeky so-and-so will always slip through the net. Still it would be another matter if the people who ran the show from the Prime Minister’s office, all the way down to the humblest clerk at the planning regulator’s office, were determined to prevent the occurrence as far as possible.
If a farmer fully within his rights acquires a permit to extend his farm by building a tool room and then sells it all off at a fat profit to the city gent looking to turn it into his dream countryside villa, how can MEPA or the Prime Minister prevent it?
The answer is simple, but awesome. No such change of use should ever be permitted. It should not be possible to turn the Jerma Palace Hotel or the Mgarr Hotel into apartment blocks. Their owners should be free to sell to other sin the hotel business or if they want to terminate their activity, they should be obliged to rid the landscape of their encumbrance. At that point it would not enter Joe the Farmer’s head to pull a fast one on the regulator.
Of course this is as far-fetched as expecting old permits to be revised under the new planning regime in the early 1990s. It happens in places that take themselves seriously. Not here.
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