IN THIS ISSUE

How not to do planning THE DEA(R)TH

OF PLANNING

By Alex Torpiano

“T he greatest problem the Maltese have to face concerns how their island – a mere speck in the Mediterranean Sea – is going to accommodate all the activities that the authorities have suggested should be undertaken on it. It seems inconceivable that a mere 120 square miles, and a population of 320,000 people (equivalent to a city the size of Leeds) can possibly encompass all the proposed developments in the way of tourism, of free-port trade and capital intake by attracting expatriates, without a drastic change in the appearance of the Malta which we know.

Inevitably these will involve a modification of Malta’s natural qualities – of her uniqueness as a place which, over the centuries, has developed in a particular way to fight the sheer inhospitability of the terrain.

This is where planning has to be authoritarian. If we are to preserve areas of natural beauty, controls are essential.

This survey is concerned with ways in which Malta can be preserved, because what it has now is its greatest value and quite unrepeatable. The unthinkable alternative is that Malta should choose to neglect her heritage and join the development rat-race. Yet she is already trying to do this. If Malta accepts laissez-faire development, the whole island will be obliterated by buildings. And this will take very little time. It will happen unless the planners, architects and the legislators take action very soon. Malta could lead Europe into a new era of environmental and cultural re-evaluation, or it could become, through a laissez-faire attitude, just another blighted area of exploitation.

The injection of more and more vehicles into the urban areas will create a parking nightmare…”

This is what Sir Quentin Hughes, together with Peter Richardson, both new lecturers in the then Department of Architecture at the Royal University of Malta, wrote in the Architectural Review in 1969, half a century ago. We were reminded of these words at an event held recently to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Quentin Hughes’ birthday.

The newspaper report of this event had one headline: ‘If Only We Had Listened To You’.

After muddling through with Temporary Provisions Schemes and the Building Development Areas Act, many thought that with the new Development Planning Act approved by Parliament in 1992 and the consequential setting up of the Planning Authority, and the publication of the Structure Plan, Malta and Gozo had finally gained a structure to implement the ‘authoritarian’ planning that Quentin Hughes considered necessary to harness development.

Over the last 30 years, as a result of continuous tweaking by politicians who seem resentful of losing their traditional power to accommodate rich constituents, the planning process is increasingly weakened, and indeed seems to be destined to oblivion.

It is inevitable that many people feel that the Planning Authority has actually forgotten what it means to plan for our future, and what its role was really meant to be. What we nowadays call planning is now reduced to simply a mechanism that adds a legalistic veneer to greed.

Let us look at some of the ‘planning’ exercises being undertaken at the moment.

Marsascala

A Development Brief for the ex-Jerma Palace Hotel site in Marsascala was published for public consultation in June 2020. The preparation of the Development Brief was requested by the then Minister responsible for planning. A public consultation about the objectives of the amendments to the Development Brief and, in particular, about the proposed floor space that would be allowed by the Brief, was previously held in the third quarter of 2019.

In this first document, the Planning Authority proposed that the overall development should not exceed 100,000m2 . In June 2020, the Planning Authority’s draft Development Brief recorded how, during the 2019 public consultation, many submissions queried the justification for the increase in gross floor area from 61,000m2 to 100,000m2 . In order to show how sensitive the Planning Authority was to submissions made during public consultations, in June 2020 the Planning Authority was proposing a maximum of 65,000m2, seemingly a reduction of 35,000m2 . Sounds reasonable, does it not?

The full facts are different. The Jerma Palace Hotel was opened in 1982, as a prestigious fourstar, five-storey hotel comprising 30,000m2 gross floor space. The developers of the hotel, the Libyan Foreign Investment Company, were sold land at the tip of the area south of Marsascala Creek, located between the historic San Tumas Tower and the sea, in order to promote tourism development in the south. The rocky headland was located seaward of the coastal promenade that skirts, and contained, the development zone all round this newer part of Marsascala.

In 2007, the hotel experienced some difficulties and shut down its operations, originally temporarily. The hotel was subsequently sold to contractors who proposed, in 2009, to transform the hotel into luxury apartments and to add another hotel and a yacht marina. These grandiose plans never materialised. The place was subsequently abandoned to squatters and to dumping of garbage for many years.

San Tumas Tower and the ex-Jerma Palace Hotel at the tip of the coast in Marsascala (Google Maps)

Over the last 30 years, as a result of continuous tweaking by politicians, who seem resentful of losing their traditional power to accommodate rich constituents, the planning process is increasingly weakened, and indeed seems to be destined to oblivion.

In 2016 proposals were submitted for the redevelopment of the site, in the form of two residential towers, one 32 storeys high and the other 44 storeys, together with a 22-storey hotel. These proposals were shot down, not least by the Marsaskala Local Council. In 2016 the Planning Authority ordered the owners to demolish the problematic shell of the old hotel. This order was not followed through. At some stage the site was presumably sold and another development proposal was floated.

This is the context for the instructions by government to the Planning Authority to prepare the ex-Jerma Palace Hotel Development Brief.

It is important to look at the Local Plan provisions for this new part of Marsascala, which comprises a headland, known as Ras il-Gżira, between Marsascala Creek and St Thomas Bay. Policy Map MS3 had intelligently proposed that the development that would be allowed in the Ras il-Gżira headland behind San Tumas Tower, would have a broadly concentric structure with height limitations that would rise from bungalows along the peripheral coastal road, rising to two-floor villa areas in the second ring, to three-floor development with basement in the third, and finally to four floors with a basement in the central portion.

The height limitations were subsequently given a new meaning with the sneaky adoption of Annex Two in the Design Guidelines of 2015, but the hierarchy of height limitations from the sea towards the centre, remained.

In the re-draft of the Development Brief, the Planning Authority touted the reduction of the original proposal of 100,000m2 to 65,000m2, but failed to really justify either figure, particularly since the original five-storey hotel had a gross area of 30,000m2. During the Parliamentary Committee meeting, which discussed the proposed Development Brief, the Planning Authority admitted that the only real justification for either the 100,000m2 , or the ‘reduced’ 65,000m2, was the specific instruction given by government!

From this arbitrary decision, the other key Development Brief parameters clearly follow. The tourism-related development allowed by this Brief remained at 33,000m2, that is, ‘never smaller’ than the original hotel. But an additional 32,000m2 of residential and commercial development were added to the development potential of the site. This is equivalent to at least 170 residential units; plus an area for commercial development which is four times the floor plate of the Market in Valletta!

This excludes a level of car-parking and services (over and above the 65,000m2) set to rise on the rocky headland to 3m above sea level; the 65,000m2 figure includes a podium, which is envisaged to rise by another 4.8m above sea level, potentially over the area of the original hotel, that is 1780m2. Development above this level is then required to have a maximum coverage of 52%.

Ironically, the Planning Authority argues in its draft Development Brief that, in order to recover public access to the foreshore (the same access that was available to the public before the original Jerma concession was made) and in order to fit the allowable development volume, effectively dictated by government, on to the ‘restricted’ site area, the allowable development has to ‘necessarily’ rise up to 32m above mean sea level, that is ca. 11 floors. This development will tower above Torri San Tumas by 9m!

Even more ironically, the Development Brief is full of pseudo-justifications for the development, at the same time as it quotes the Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (the need to protect and enhance the character and amenity of existing distinct urban areas), or the Local Plan (the strategic policy direction for Marsascala is not to encourage large scale retail activities); and at the same time as it outlined, and ignored, the many consultation submissions made by the public, including the families who live around the San Tumas Tower.

The discussion on the proposed Brief by the Parliamentary Committee, which is meant to provide the ultimate over-sight of Planning Authority proposals, highlighted the ineptitude of our planning processes. The politicians around the table, from either party, were clearly out of their depth as far as planning issues were concerned.

No questions were asked about how the calculation of ‘33%’ of the extent of the land, to derive the 17,700m2 proposed footprint, included the public foreshore, the scheduled tower, and the existing public streets. No questions were asked about the fact that the quoted ‘open public space’ was actually to be located above the building podium. Nor was any concern expressed on the impact of the development on the surrounding community, or about the traffic that it would generate. No concern was expressed about the proposed diversion of a public road, or about the impact of the proposal on the historic San Tumas Tower. No attempt was made to address any of the issues raised during the public consultation.

The discussion was a mere formality, with the conclusion clearly already reached before the session started. One concern of one politician was whether the planning gain would be benefit one of the local clubs, clearly his constituents – the answer, unfortunately for him, was no, it would go towards the restoration of the tower. As if bad planning could be compensated for by ‘planning gain’.

The detailed story of the ex-Jerma Palace Hotel Site Development Brief was necessary to show that, in spite of our knowledgeable planners, the key decisions are taken by politicians, who are very responsive to the demands of developers, but completely oblivious to the needs of communities. This story is not unique.

Ta’ Qali

The current planning process is highlighted by another Planning Authority proposal, to partially review the Ta’ Qali Action Plan so that the industrial destination of the 60,000m2 area would be changed into one dedicated to commercial activities, including offices, supermarkets, clinics, education facilities, retail areas, food and drink establishments (and storage and distribution facilities!).

A previous round of consultations was undertaken in 2018, before the latest consultation concluded this October. The document is introduced by the words: ‘Government’s request to amend the Plan’s Policies NWTQ32, NWTQ33 and the maps’ relative to the area, emphasising that planning starts from political decisions, which are rarely transparent, and not necessarily from a rational land-use point of view.

Seventeen pages of consultee submissions are published in the same document; 45% of the submissions come from land-owners, obviously asking for more. The one change that the Planning Authority has announced it is taking on board, following the 2018 consultation, is the requirement that 40% of the relative development areas has to be retained as open space, this including the landscape buffer at parts of the perimeter.

This may sound like quite a large open space, especially if we could imagine it as full of trees and bushes, complementing the adjacent National Park. Unfortunately, the reality is different. Typical dimensions of commercial or industrial buildings could be taken as, for example, 33m wide by 76m deep, that is, 1254sq.m. 60% site coverage would demand 836 sq.m. of open space, which, after removing the ‘landscaped buffer’, translates into a strip, all around the perimeter, of barely 6.5m width – barely enough for a vehicular access road and pavements, let alone trees and bushes.

This may well be the type of development the Planning Authority has in mind, but it is misleading to suggest that this provides any meaningful ‘open space’. And were there any studies undertaken on the impact of vehicular traffic on the adjacent National Park? Or consultations with the local community? Of course not!

Mriehel

Ironically, just as the Ta’ Qali industrial area is proposed for re-configuration for commercial use, the Planning Authority also published proposals to remove the height limitations in Marsa, and the Malta Industrial Parks Estate areas of Mriehel, because the ‘need to address the shortage of space for industrial and business uses is essential’. The ‘public consultation’ document, for such an important planning change, consists of nine lines of text, of which only one line contains anything resembling a planning objective. The text raises so many questions:

Is the Planning Authority really proposing that industrial activities could be housed in a multi-storey facility? Given the current saturation of the office market, and the changes in office typology that are expected to result from the COVID-19 pandemic, is there any real justification for the Planning Authority’s decision?

If commercial use also includes supermarkets and retail centres, has the Planning Authority quietly decided that out-oftown shopping is the desirable future for Malta?

How can a proposed change of this nature be considered serious planning if the Planning Authority simply proposes that, instead of height limitations, ‘non-numeric urban design policies to guide assessment of building heights’ will be used in these areas? Should the PA not share these non-numeric design policies with the public, before asking for the removal of the height limitation?

If, in the Ta’ Qali re-configuration proposal, the Planning Authority highlights the need to protect views of and from Mdina, why is the same concern not expressed for the Mriehel removal of height limitations?

If the vision for Mriehel is evolving, why does the Planning Authority not embark on a proper master-planning exercise, rather than pandering to the demands of a single land-

The renaissance of public interest planning must be based, as Quentin Hughes put it, on an ‘authoritarian’ approach, where the rights of the community trump the perceived rights of the land-owner.

owner of one particular area, in this case, the Government of Malta?

So much for the usefulness of the public consultation.

There is yet another twist. The Development Notification Order legal notice, first promulgated in 2001, is intended to remove the requirement of a Development Application, originally for a number of development activities considered minor, including painting of façades, placing tables and chairs in public spaces, putting solar panels on roofs.

A series of amendments since 2017 widened the concept to include projects by the Armed Forces of Malta (Class 17), the Corradino Correctional Facility (Class 20), the Malta Police Force (Class 21), and development in any Malta Industrial Park areas or Malta Enterprise Zones (Class 16).

The only limitation that was imposed on any type of development within these areas was, in fact, the 15m height limitation that the current proposals seek to remove. In other words, for our industrial estates, not only is there poor planning, but the Planning Authority is formally declaring that there is no need for planning!

Institutional failure

One of the saddest aspects of the state of spatial planning in Malta and Gozo is the declared helplessness of the newly-appointed Executive Chairperson of the Planning Authority, who recently declared that he did not believe that the Planning Authority had any legal basis to stop the ugly pencil development that is bedeviling all our towns and villages ‘if plans and policies allow it’.

It does not seem to have occurred to him that it is the duty and responsibility of the Planning Authority to change those plans and policies that have been proven to be deleterious to Malta. That is what is intended by planning!

The general public is increasingly exasperated by this institutional failure. A recent survey by EY Malta has confirmed that many people, particularly young people between the ages of 16 and 39, believe that the problem of the worsening environmental situation in Malta needs to be addressed properly. 60% of this cohort decried overdevelopment, and 52% decried the state of the environment – interestingly, concern for the economy only featured at 31%. Reflecting these views, a Eurobarometer Survey recorded that 45% of the population is worried that our rural landscape has deteriorated in the last 10 years, and 62% believe that the area covered by trees and forests has declined.

And a recent MaltaToday editorial focused on the ‘glut of uncontrolled development’, and on developers’ ‘disdain for rules and procedures’; and proposed a campaign to force ‘whether by court action or (preferably) by popular referendum’ a radical change in our planning legislation, particularly to wrest planning clear of the grasp of members of parliament, who have proved too susceptible to the pressures of developers and landowners.

A different approach

The renaissance of public interest planning must be based, as Quentin Hughes put it, on an ‘authoritarian’ approach, where the rights of the community trump the perceived rights of the land-owner. A return to the basics of the principles of planning is necessary – and the basic principle is that the community, through the state, holds the rights to develop. Development rights are effectively nationalised.

Land ownership is not the same as the right to build, and, in particular, to benefit financially from the development decisions taken by the community. This is why a landowner applies for planning permission from the community.

Perhaps the next step ought to be the realisation that the increase in the value of land, as a result of the grant of planning permission, should consequently not accrue solely to the individual land-owner, but mainly to the community that granted that permission. That would remove the extreme pressures of profit that distort current planning decisions. n

Alex Torpiano is an architect and the Dean of the Faculty for the Built Environment at the University of Malta. He is the Executive President of Din l-Art Ħelwa.