Short of veto, Planning Authority only obliged to ‘take ERA into consideration’

Legal amendments will ensure that recommendations issued by the Environment and Resources Authority on projects requiring an impact assessment will be given due weight by the Planning Authority board.

The ERA already issues a report on projects which require an EIA, which usually includes a recommendation on whether a project should be approved or not, together with conditions to mitigate environmental impacts in case a project is approved.

But if legal amendments proposed by the environment minister are approved, the ERA will start taking its decisions in public, giving the opportunity to the applicant and the public to make comments and representations.

Moreover, ERA will also be obliged to take into consideration the feedback from the public before arriving at its final assessment of a project and when making recommendations.

This means that before a final Planning board decision, projects will also be submitted to ERA’s approval. The ERA’s decision will however not be binding.

But the PA will be duly obliged “to take into account the ERA’s position and recommendations, and incorporate them into its decision-making process”.

The legal amendments stop short on giving ERA a veto on projects having an environmental impact.

Only last year the ERA had formally asked for veto powers on developments in rural areas, in submissions to new PA rules. But this was not taken up in the new rural policy guidelines issued for public consultation. Most of these permits do not even require an EIA.

A MaltaToday probe in 2016 had revealed that the ERA had objected to 69% of applications outside the development zones (ODZ) approved by Planning Authority.

In its submissions on the new policy, ERA presented a radical proposal addressing this major shortcoming – namely that all development applications with the rural area should be subject to “its clearance prior to the issuing” of any permit.

The aim of this proposal is to ensure that “environmental considerations are intrinsically integrated in the development control process”.

“ERA believes that all development related applications within the Rural Area should be subject to its clearance prior to the issuing of any development consent.”

A similar proposal to give ERA more say in the determination of ODZ applications was made by planning ombudsman David Pace in 2017.

Pace had proposed changes to legislation to ensure that applications that are objected to by the ERA, are not approved by the PA unless the grounds for these objections are effectively addressed, and the necessary amendments are made to the proposed project.

But this proposal has not been inserted in the first draft of the redrafted policy issued for public consultation.

In its reply to ERA’s submission, the PA said the role of ERA as one of the “statutory consultees” in the processing of all applications including those in rural areas was already regulated by law. The law at present obliges the PA to consult with ERA but gives the latter no veto powers.

But while the proposal to give ERA veto powers was not included in the first draft, most other proposals made by ERA to plug loopholes which led to the approval of ODZ villas, were included in the policy update.

PN environment spokesperson David Thake recently proposed giving the environment watchdog veto power on planning decisions about works in outside development zones.