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Although the description of Malta as a permanent building site is a well worn out cliché, it is in fact very close to the truth. The last sixty years have seen the building industry going from strength to strength: from the rebuilding of the country after the ravages of World War II, via the building of residential units for the British Services in the Cold War fifties, followed by the first building boom of hotels and holiday houses for the nascent tourist industry in the immediate post-independence period, to the present situation.
What is slightly different today is that building operations are more concentrated in existing built-up areas as redevelopment has become the order of the day. This is the side effect of restraining development within rigid boundaries. Ironically, many who have the environment at heart do not even realise this.
Whichever way one looks at the current situation, the fact remains that through the last sixty years, the dependence of the country’s economic progress on the building industry cannot be denied and it is becoming more and more obvious that this phenomenon is here to stay with us. Few realise the important part that the building industry has played in our country’s march from a developing to a developed country and to what large extent – again ironically – we owe our present high standard of living to this industry.
Over the years the Maltese people have benefited immensely from the positive multiplier effect of the money generated by the building industry, even though some people think it is some sort of villain what should be hung, drawn and quartered. To suggest – as an environmentalist campaigner has done in a recent interview in another newspaper – that we need a moratorium on large-scale development, is akin to prescribing suicide because one has a headache. I hasten to add that I am not involved in any way in any large-scale development, even though I have to declare my interest in the building industry through my professional practice and through a small company that acts as a developer.
Developers, in fact, are also regularly described as ‘speculators’ when in fact development and speculation are not quite the same thing. Someone who buys a house, demolishes it and builds a block of apartments is a developer and not a speculator. Someone who buys a piece of land outside the development zone in the hope that it will some day become precious developable land is a speculator because he is actually speculating. Moreover speculation is not restricted to land ownership: there are those who buy shares in the stock-market or some piece of art in the hope that the value of their acquisition will rocket in a short time. This is also speculation. But doing a straight-forward piece of business by buying property at its fair market value and developing or redeveloping it in order to make a profit is certainly not speculation.
Otherwise, we might as well say that the ice-cream vendor who sets shop on a beach in summer is a speculator. He does this because he reckons there is a demand for what he is selling. So does the developer, even though some might think otherwise.
There is no doubt that among developers there are those who are best described as ‘cowboys’ bullying their way over everyone, with no respect for third parties owning properties adjacent to their site, let alone for the other residents of the street or the people passing by. But this does not mean that all developers are villains, just as the fact that there are some lawyers who are ‘cowboys’ does not mean that all those in the legal profession are vicious, irresponsible people.
The fact that there are so many vacant houses while developers keep on selling their ‘products’ should also raise a number of questions. The idea that there is no need for new buildings because there are so many vacant properties is a very simplistic argument that does not square up with the realities of life. If there is no market for new houses or flats, developers would not risk their money in costly useless endeavours. This conundrum is not easy to understand but I suspect that our standard of living has something to do with it. Converting old properties into ones with proper convenient modern amenities seems to be too expensive to merit consideration from many people who would prefer to live in a modern apartment anyway. We all agree on the need for urban regeneration – the problem is that there is a large disagreement on how this can be done while there is a continual steady increase of abandoned properties in old village and town centres. One could very well look at Valletta – an area where the importance of preserving its architectural heritage and character is beyond discussion. Pass through Merchants Street and raise your eyesight above the open market and the shops that occupy the first four metres above street level… You will see a lot of abandoned old palazzos in all stages of dilapidation. I am not, of course, promoting the demolition of these buildings and their replacement with ultra-modern city blocks. I am simply pointing out that we have not managed to solve the problem of the abandoned buildings of Valletta, let alone those of all the village and town centres that some feel should be preserved at all costs, without any compromises and no holds barred.
All of this is even more exacerbated by the fact that we are one of the most densely populated countries in the world, a fact that many continually ignore. All the country’s economic activity – of which the building industry is a vital component – is concentrated in a relatively very small area, when compared with other countries. As far as economic activity goes, agricultural zones translate into a very low amount of activity per square kilometre. Moreover, there is no such activity in the garigue or in other areas of scenic beauty which many environmentalists, rightly consider as untouchable.
We have to do everything else in whatever space is left in these islands. Which is why this fair land seems destined to remain a permanent building site.
micfal@maltanet.net
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