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Don’t get hung up about the empty dwellings chestnut. The statistics are there to prove an inexistent point.
The recent controversy on the slight increase in developable area approved by Parliament led the vociferous ‘environmental lobby’ to repeat ad nauseam that with so many vacant houses in Malta, we do not need any more housing stock. I have already expressed my opinion that this is a very simplistic argument that does not square up with the realities of life.
Such arguments have led to people quoting statistics and bandying them about as if they prove the point. Everyone can have fun with figures but one must never forget the well worn cliché that statistics are the worst form of lies!
For example, no one has given enough weight to the fact that in the last twenty years, the population has increased by some 60,000 and that every year we have around 2,400 marriages and most couples would need a new home. If the large quantities of reportedly empty houses are all really available for immediate use, property prices would not keep on rising, and finding a house would not be such a big problem for these couples. There would be no market for new houses or flats, and developers would not risk their money in unprofitable endeavours!
Using this issue as a good contender for fun with figures, one might start off by quoting the real statistic that every year there are some 2,900 deaths in Malta. Assuming that half of these deaths lead to an empty house – with the other half remaining occupied with the surviving spouse or other members of the family – and assuming that all these properties are up to the desired standard and sellable, one concludes that around 1,500 properties are emptied every year. This back-of-the-envelope calculation results in a shortfall of 900 houses a year when matched with the number of marriages.
Let me work out this calculation in another way. The population of Malta and Gozo is increasing by roughly 2,500 a year. The number of persons per household is around 3.15 and consistently decreasing. Ignoring the fact that separations are on the increase, and that this phenomenon is leading to an increased demand in small residential units, this means that every year the country needs around 800 new units. This is practically the same result that I arrived at in the previous calculation!
Yet there are some who simply ignore this scenario and peddle an outright ban on building more houses because of the much abused statistic of empty houses. Before our population stabilises or starts to decrease somewhat, something that is not expected to happen before the middle of this century, we simply cannot satisfy the demand for housing with the claimed amount of empty properties.
Quoting percentages (worked out correctly or otherwise) does not necessarily lead to correct assessments. This has also been obvious from the way the statistics on land use of the proposed ‘Smart City’ have been used to warp the truth and mislead people. Saying, for example, that only about one fifth (19%) of the land is going to be used in ICT-related development ignores the fact that 33% of the land in question is going to be utilised for roads and public open spaces. The actual figures, in fact, are 33% for open public spaces, 20% for villas and apartments, 19% for ICT generating at least 3,600 jobs and 28% for hotel and retail activities generating at least 2,000 jobs.
It is obvious that jobs in ICT do not compare with jobs in industrial estates as far as land utilisation is concerned. Moreover the height of the proposed office blocks is not the same as that in residential areas. If the villas – that turned out to be 40 not 260 – are two storeys high while the office blocks are ten storeys high, one ends up with five times the area for offices with the same footprint! Yet some have clung to the basic footprint percentages and lambasted the government for changing the nature of the project from when it was first announced.
If one considers the percentages of the built-up areas, one comes to a very different conclusion. 46% of this area (138,000 sq. mt.) will be taken up by ICT/Media office space, a figure that incidentally is larger than that of Dubai International City itself. 29% or 88,000 sq. mt. will be taken up by ancillary commercial activities, while 25% or 74,000 sq. mt. will be used for residential units that can provide accommodation to just 8% of the working population of the city.
The Opposition and the likes of Claire Bonello have tried to make a field day by quoting percentages and using them with malice aforethought to disparage the ‘Smart City’ project. Anyone can make fun with figures, but the way this fun is made reflects the sincerity or otherwise of whoever uses figures to prove an inexistent point!
Some figures for H.G.
Someone recently also tried to make an inexistent point on another issue. This time it was His Grace the Archbishop who in his homily on Independence Day thought it fit to repeat his favourite foray about married women who are employed. As he did not quote any statistics on the issue, some are certainly of interest. In Malta, just 30% of full-time employees and 60% of employees who only have a part-time job are women. About 76% of men, but only 35% of women, of working age are employed. Unlike the Archbishop, I think that this not enough. In the twenty-five EU countries, Malta is bottom of the league (with 33.7%) as far as female participation in the labour market is concerned. If the situation remains the same, we have a chance of handing over the wooden spoon to Turkey with 23.8%, when this country becomes a EU member!
Why the Archbishop is so keen on wasting half of our human resources beats me. Indeed, I seriously doubt whether he made his homework properly and checked what would happen to Church schools and institutions if married women stopped working in them. They would all have to close – including the biggest social institution that the Church has ever endowed to Malta: Id-Dar tal-Providenza.
Thank God that those who run these establishments consistently ignore the Archbishop’s retrograde ideas about working women.
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