‘Don’t touch ODZ boundaries,’ NGOs tell government

Din l-Art Helwa and Flimkien ghall-Ambjent Ahjar have expressed complete disagreement with the government’s intention to tweak development boundaries as announced by planning parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon in an interview with MaltaToday last Sunday. 

On its part the opposition is calling on the government to present a justification for any extension of development boundaries and to submit any such proposal to a Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEA).

Din l-Art Helwa president Simone Mizzi insisted that the country is still paying the cost of the extension of development boundaries in 2006. 

“Tweaking them again is yet another ‘wrong’ to all, save for those persons who will benefit from political promises made in exchange for votes. These are two wrongs to our environment that can never make a right... The vote bribery can exist forever, our open spaces will not.”

According to Astrid Vella the announcement that extension of the development zones is being considered is bad but not unexpected news “as when questioned on this subject, the answers given by the Prime Minister and previous Parliamentary Secretary were never clear-cut”.

She also referred to the new regulations encouraging the construction of agro-tourism and other structures in the countryside which have already opened Out of Development Zones (ODZ) to further development. 

“The same goes for the project encroaching onto scheduled ODZ land at White Rocks/Pembroke as well as the three hotels on the southern coast”. 

 Vella referred to the claim by Falzon that “even from an aesthetic point of view it would make sense to include lands which were left out unfairly.” 

“This is nothing more than a repeat of the pretexts given to justify the notorious Rationalistation Scheme of 2006”.

Vella contrasted the current government’s capitulation to speculators’ demands for more land to the fact that 40,000 housing units are vacant and thousands more are crying out for restoration. “This shows the lack of courage and vision of our political class”

In an exclusive interview with MaltaToday published on Sunday, Michael Falzon, the parliamentary secretary responsible for planning and government lands, revealed that the new local plans will tweak development boundaries once again, adding lands which were unfairly left out in the controversial 2006 rationalisation. 

While excluding a major extension of development boundaries Falzon confirmed that boundaries may be extended in some cases.

“The general political direction is that the new local plans will not double or triple the size of the development zone… We are saying clearly that as far as possible the development zone will not increase.”

But when asked why the government does not simply keep boundaries as these are today, Falzon justified tweaking the 2006 boundaries by accusing the former government of being “creative” in including certain lands and not others.

“Even from an aesthetic point of view it would make sense to include lands which were left out unfairly,” the minister said, while adding that “there is no intention to repeat the obscenities committed in 2006.”

In 2006 the rationalisation exercise in which an area the size of Siggiewi was added to development zones, was justified by the previous government as a way to fill “infill sites” (previously ODZ land surrounded on two sides by existing development) which had been left out from the temporary building plans in 1988.

The issue was also discussed by the PN’s parliamentary group.

PN spokesperson Ryan Callus told MaltaToday that the position of the PN parliamentary group is that the government has not yet provided a justification as to whether there is a need for the development zones to be extended. 

“The Opposition has been stating that the Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED) has to be finalized before any other local plan or policy is approved, as it provides a strategic planning framework for Malta for the years to come.

“In any case, extending the development zones ought to be subjected to a Strategic Environment Impact Assessment (SEA), something the goverment has not done yet”.