TMID Editorial: Updating the local plans
There has been a lot of talk about Malta's local plans over the past months.Prime Minister Robert Abela had said that they are outdated. He is not wrong, however the government's track record when it comes to planning policies and application approva
There has been a lot of talk about Malta's local plans over the past months.
Prime Minister Robert Abela had said that they are outdated. He is not wrong, however the government's track record when it comes to planning policies and application approvals leaves much to be desired. Just look at quiet residential areas suddenly seeing eight or more floor monstrosities being approved, such as in Naxxar, which have raised serious concerns about future traffic congestion.
Present and past governments have failed to conduct proper planning for the country, and this is evident when one just looks at the uglification of towns and cities that has occurred thanks to the Planning Authority's inability to be effective at governing planning. Rows of townhouses which should have been preserved, were butchered. Streetscape design is also practically non-existent except for Urban Conservation Areas (UCA), and some of those very same UCA areas became overshadowed by apartment blocks right on the edge, with no buffer zone. One sees rows of apartments standing one near the other that are not aesthetically pleasing in least.
Governments have also introduced policies which were controversial to say the least, such as the fuel stations policy that was changed after years of complaints; the introduction of a policy that allows high rises practically anywhere.
The current government's reluctance to revert areas which had been introduced into the development zone through the rationalisation exercise, but which as yet are untouched with no application filed on them, back into an ODZ area also shows the government's reluctance to reduce what is allowed to be built in an area.
Recently the government's handpicking of specific areas to modify the plans, which was seen as being done to support certain developers such as in the Villa Rosa situation, is not the right way to handle things either and raises concerns that government's priority would be developers, and not the people, in a more general local plan review.
If local plans are going to be reviewed, then it must be done holistically and with an eye of protecting the country for future generations. For example, green areas must remain untouched and if anything be given even more protection than they have today. Height limitations should be modified to create buffer zones to UCA areas, so that new applications would only allow a staggered height increase. There would need to be better height limits to ensure that people actually get sun light on their properties also, rather than living in shadows, and they must be plans that take the transport carrying capacity of areas into consideration as well. In addition, World Heritage site buffer zones need increased protection.
Such a review of the local plans would need to go hand in hand with other policies, such as a skyline policy that makes sense for Malta, and a policy regarding streetscape design that would result in aesthetically pleasing rows of apartments or houses, rather than a hotchpotch of designs that, collectively, are an eyesore.
Planning policies need to put people and the future look of the country first.
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