A dishonest prime minister

When Robert Abela announced in 2023 that government would be reforming the planning appeals process to ensure that no works can start while building permits are being appealed, everyone welcomed the move.

It was a logical thing to do since we’ve had cases where the Appeals Court would have revoked a permit but the building would have already been erected. The most notable case is that of the swimming pools built in Qala by developer Joseph Portelli that were declared illegal by the court. These pools still stand to this very day and will remain there forever as a result of the planning changes being proposed by the government.

Unfortunately, with Abela nothing is as it seems. What you see and what you hear are not what you get—many ministers attest to this but none have the brazenness to call him out.

And when the bomb was dropped on a hot Friday afternoon in the middle of the summer lull, Abela’s dishonesty was exposed. Bill 143 and Bill 144, published on Friday, include several wide-ranging changes to planning regulations that go way beyond the scope of reforming the appeals system as Abela had suggested two years ago.

It transpires that what the prime minister had in mind was a revamped planning system geared to appease developers and big business.

Apart from making it harder for a building permit to be revoked on appeal, the proposed changes provide a looser planning system that will favour developers every step of the way. The sop to environmentalists is a 20-fold increase to €2,000 in the daily fine for breaching an enforcement order.

Significantly, the proposed changes mean that if the Appeals Court does not finish its job within five months, the developer could start construction work and any subsequent court ruling will have no impact on those works, even if they are deemed illegal. This means that Joseph Portelli’s swimming pools would remain standing.

But the proposed changes also give the minister new powers to introduce regulations that establish the “procedures, criteria, and conditions under which existing illegal developments or structures may be assessed, regulated, or otherwise addressed” by the PA.

The prospected changes also grant more discretionary power to planning boards to deviate from policies and introduces the notion that the most recent policy changes will override local plans. This means that the 2006 local plans have been effectively neutralised since any new policy after that time will take sway.

In one fell swoop, Abela and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri caved in to the demands of developers. They could have spared us all the hassle of having to trawl through the bills to understand the changes and removed the Planning Authority altogether—at least developers will be able to do as they please without giving them a veneer of legitimacy.

The Labour Party, its functionaries, Cabinet and not least the prime minister, can now stop quoting 2006 as the year of planning shame to justify present ills and blame them on past Nationalist administrations—that moral high horse has long bolted.

Abela should not rush this reform through parliament. It would be a big mistake to bulldoze through the concerns being raised by environmentalists and honest citizens. The prime minister should put the country’s and our children’s interests before his own narrow political ambitions and pull up the hand brake.

But we will not be surprised if Abela ignores these appeals—he was dishonest enough to promise one thing and deliver something completely different.

And with the Nationalist Party caught in the throes of a leadership contest that is unlikely to produce anything different in terms of planning regulation, it is left to civil society organisations, Momentum, ADPD and all people of goodwill to stand up to this obscene reform.

Malta deserves better than the current political class that has sold its soul to developers.