TMID Editorial: Building on ODZ

The government talks a lot about protecting the environment and greening up the country, but is not doing enough.One understands, for instance, the need to construct certain types of infrastructure on ODZ land, such as a hospital if one is needed, bu

By: independent.com.mt

Oct 01 2024
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TMID Editorial: Building on OD

The government talks a lot about protecting the environment and greening up the country, but is not doing enough.

One understands, for instance, the need to construct certain types of infrastructure on ODZ land, such as a hospital if one is needed, but, as evidenced in Naxxar, ODZ land is being taken up by certain types of development which shouldn't even be as far away from the town centre as they are.

We are here referring to the construction of homes for the elderly. A recent application to the Planning Authority for the construction of yet another such development in the locality of Naxxar has been filed. This, when one elderly home was already constructed on land located Outside the Development Zone just up the road, and yet another application for another such home for the elderly was approved earlier this year, also just up the road.

It is the perfect example of one permit approval on ODZ leading to others filing for the same. It is a perfect example of the Planning Authority failing to protect the green areas in the country from private commercial gain.

This not to mention a well-established elderly home having already been built in the locality years before these.

Yes, homes for the elderly are needed in the country. Of course they are. But being built so far away from the heart of the community means that the residents are far too secluded. In a home that is closer to the town centre, those elderly residents who cannot drive would be more inclined to go out, if of course they are able. Being so far restricts their ability to do so.

There are abandoned buildings around the country that can be bought and converted.

Let's also not forget that the wider community needs the green areas and open spaces that are left in this ever developing concrete jungle.

So there are two issues at hand here. Firstly, the takeup of more of Malta's extremely limited green space, in this case resulting in the slow merging of two localities into one, that being Naxxar and Gharghur, and the distance between these elderly homes and the town centres themselves, which itself creates a restriction on the ability of some residents to just go out and be in the heart of the community.

The Naxxar council is rightly objecting to the latest application for a new home for the elderly, a planning application which it called 'outrageous'.

This planning application proposes an elderly care home on 9,325 square metres of farmland along Triq Wied Anglu and Triq il-Vittmi tan-Nar in Naxxar, in an area which is close to the Victoria Lines and Birguma Quarry and overlooks the Gharghur countryside.

"The proposed elderly care home in ODZ not only represents an unjustified intrusion into a protected rural area but also undermines the very foundations of sustainable development and environmental protection that Malta is committed to upholding," the council said, among other things.

Its about time the government updates its planning policies to further limit what can and cannot be built on ODZ in order to protect the green areas the country has left, and for the Planning Authority to ensure that applications for elderly homes are closer to the hearts of communities, rather than in areas which limit the ability for residents to head into town centres.