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When developers want to bulldoze their way over objectors, their preferred insult of choice is to call them NIMBYs (Not in My Backyard). Portraying people who oppose their plans as selfish and parochial is the PR strategy which has caught on big time with the building community. Moving away from the crude Caqnu-speak hurled at protestors’ heads in the earlier days of environmental awareness, contractors have now moved into the “call them NIMBYs” zone. The young couple who complain about the giant fissures snaking their way down their living room wall because of the mega-development taking place next door, are written off as petty so-and-sos, unable to put up with a bit of discomfort for the greater good of the multitudes of potential residents. The grandmother who can’t bear the thought of her sea view being obliterated by some monstrosity is cast in the role of a nagging, blue-rinsed whiner hopelessly out of touch with all that’s good in the planning world. The flat owner who worries that the price of his property is going to nosedive if the underlying sweetshop is converted into a bar, is vilified as an egoistic nuisance.
The idea behind calling someone a NIMBY is to discredit their motives and suggest that fighting to protect one’s health, family and neighbourhood is some kind of moral defect. Now the NIMBY label is being planted on the Qui-Si-Sana residents who oppose the car park and Residents Parking Scheme (RPZ) proposed in their locality. Minister George Pullicino didn’t mutter the precise words, but many residents are joining the dots. First there was the full page interview where he tried to allay their fears about a prospective application for a change of use. “Improbable but not impossible” was his verdict. Then there was the long letter with not so subtle put-downs to those querying the way it would work out. As with the case of the guilty adulteress “Methinks, he protests too much.” Sliema residents, not just those living in Qui-Si-Sana, were left reeling with the shock of seeing a Minister apparently backing a contractor as opposed to the residents who are voicing their reasoned concerns about the proposals. The feeling is that the project has been given the royal seal of approval by the Minister. David Beckham endorses football boots by wearing them on the pitch. His wife endorses Walker’s crisps by crunching them away in a TV ad. We are wondering if George Pullicino is endorsing this particular project by defending it so strongly in the media.
I talked to Simon Camilleri, the head of the Qui-Si-Sana Residents Association about the project. He is a dentist, a quiet person who forwards reasonable arguments based on a detailed scrutiny of all the documents pertaining to the proposal. He is not a hysterical house owner clinging on nostalgically to a vision of a Sliema of elegant, stately homes. Simon Camilleri is representative of the majority of residents – concerned, and rightly so. He told me that they have objected to the car park ever since the development brief was issued in 1999. They maintain that the massive increase in traffic and the fumes and dust vented from the car park would pollute the air and the adjacent beach.
Plonking vast car parks bang in the middle of residential areas is an approach which was abandoned in the seventies. Unlike long boots and peasant blouses, it has not made a comeback. Having more garages is not the way forward and actually goes against the government’s policy regarding transport. Camilleri clearly remembers Minister Censu Galea saying that the last thing that Malta needs is more car parks.
Many car-lovers can’t get their heads around this. They think that garages are the perfect solution to the parking problem. However things don’t work out that way. If thousands of people head for Qui-Si-Sana, secure in the knowledge that they’re going to find a parking slot in the car park, there’s going to be a huge increase in the number of cars circling round the blocks and belching out exhaust. It is estimated that there would be a traffic flow of about 4,000 cars an hour around the Tigne peninsula. And if you don’t know what this amounts to, it’s similar to the traffic flow on Regional Road. On the other hand, drivers could shun the car park because of the charges imposed. It would always be half empty for most of the time – a part-time ghost car park like the one in High Street. It would be underutilised and more commercial space would have to be introduced. These outlets will eventually suffer from the intense competition from the MIDI, Town Square and other existing establishments. Eventually they’ll close down. Deterioration will rapidly set in with the area becoming derelict – another Jumbo Lido on a massive scale. This is not good news for Qui-Si-Sana, Sliema or the rest of the country.
The residents are singularly unimpressed by the supposed difficulties in applying for a change of use of the carpark. Stranger things have happened. In Marfa, public land was occupied illegally for the building of a hotel. It was then sold to the brazen-faced developer for a pittance. He went on to sanction his illegally built architectural atrocity and cash in from the proceeds. Only last week, Maurice Mizzi gave us a full page photo spread of illegally built villas in Bidnija. In Malta, planning pigs do fly. Illegality can be sanctioned, a change of use is a trifle, a procedural piffle.
The developer has promised to restore the garden. The sum total of this restoration is a stepped area, 95 per cent of which is concrete and which is to be mostly covered by tables and chairs for the kiosk. And the kiosk? It has a frontage of 45 metres and not 10 metres as per the brief. Only a dozen or so trees are shown on his plans. They are planted in a few inches of soil. If this amounts to a garden, Buskett is the Amazon Forest.
What really gets up the residents’ nose and what should sound a warning bell for the rest of the country, is how public funds are going to be utilised. The development brief states that funds from the commuted parking payment scheme (those funds collected by MEPA from persons who did not provide parking places) are to be used for the introduction of the Residents Parking Zone. The relevant section specifically mentions construction costs. The logical assumption is that the quarter of a million liri of public CPPS funds will be used to defray the contractor’s expenses in construction of the car park.
Public funds for private profit – what a way to go. No wonder the Qui-Si-Sana residents feel that they have been sold off for private profit by the government. They are Sliema residents in a district which is overwhelmingly Nationalist-voting. The loss of their votes will not mean an electoral defeat for the PN. They are surplus to requirements and can be ignored.
cl.bon@global.net.mt
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