Give ERA power of veto on planning matters, says Church commission

The Maltese Catholic Church’s environment commission has called for the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) to be granted the power of a veto on development applications and planning policies “that have a significant bearing on the quality of life”.

The Interdiocesan Commission for the Environment the veto power for ERA also be extended to the proposed authority responsible in matters relating to agricultural leases.

Marking World Town Planning Day 2022 yesterday, the commission said no action had been yet taken to address the rural policy guidlines of 2014 and the development control policy of 2015, despite reviews of these rules.

“The planning system practised under the Development Planning Act, and other practices that have no legal basis at law – including the concept of precedent used to approve certain development applications – is working against some of the strategic objectives of the draft NSE 2050 and the aims of the White Paper on Agricultural Reform,” the commission said.

“One should not be surprised that agricultural land is being lost and that the natural environment is being urbanised. The Rural Policy and Design Guidance 2014 has been contributing to such loss.”

A public consultation that ended in August 2020 for the rural policy has not yet achieved any review, and no action has been taken on the 2015 development control rules which the commission said was the main cause of devastation of Gozo’s ridges and accelerated loss of Gozo’s unique landscape.

“If the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) and the Environment Protection Act, together with the proposed Authority responsible for agricultural land, are to play a distant second fiddle to the Development Planning Act and its decision-making processes then we would as a nation be betraying the country as well as current and future generations. The planning system, due to the way it has developed over the last years, needs more effective checks and balances for it to really serve the common good.”

The commission called on the government and the parliamentary standing committee on the environment to take decisive action now to stop the urban and natural environment from continuing to be irreparably damaged.

“Such damage is being inflicted by misguided development plans and planning policies and decision-making processes based on concepts anathema to planning that have been introduced informally over the years by decision makers,” the commission said.