WATCH | Wayne Flask: ‘Planning bills are rotten to the core’

Wayne Flask is secretary of Il-Kollettiv, a residents’ activist group, and a member of the consultation board set up to find middle ground on government’s controversial planning reforms. He tells Matthew Farrugia that government is intentionally dragging its feet on the issue to quietly move the bills away from public eyes on the eve of the next general election.

Il-Kollettiv Secretary Wayne Flask does not mince his words when describing government’s controversial planning bills—they are “rotten” to the core, he says. 

It is this sentiment that guides Flask and his colleagues representing residents and NGOs in talks with the government over the reforms. Flask says the bills should be scrapped except for the proposal of preventing works from starting until all stages of the appeals process are concluded. 

Flask sits down for this interview, days after he blasting the fact that the consultation process surrounding Bills 143 and 144 has ground to a halt despite assurances from the prime minister that revised drafts would be issued. 

The activist notes that the planning bills made many within the Labour Party uncomfortable. The bills do not encourage a reform that pushes the sector forward, he insists, but rather backward.  

Asked whether shelving the bills until after the next general election would give government a chance to go back to the drawing board, Flask says that such a chance exists right now. 

On a more general note, Flask speaks of the frustration caused by construction and notes that the current economic model which is heavily reliant on the building sector is now impinging on public and personal space. 

This is why, according to Flask, the public should stay informed about Bills 143 and 144. 

The following is an excerpt from the interview. 

A few days ago, Il-Kollettiv essentially condemned government’s pace when it comes to the planning reform consultation. Where did this come from? 

We criticised the fact that the process has completely stalled. There has been no meeting since November. They told us that the amendments are coming but nothing has happened. 

Last January, the prime minister said that these [amendments] will be sent to us but there’s nothing so far. We have the impression that they’re waiting for the election to come and go so they can pass these laws the way they tried to do last August… 

How was the mood in the meetings you had with government? How did government’s representatives behave in the meetings? 

When there are meetings behind closed doors I don’t like to share details. But I can tell you that what we have been talking about was understood clearly, and I think there were people who agreed with us because they had a chance to study how these bills will impact their work, their districts, and the way laws work in Malta… 

The person who wrote these bills—architect and lawyer Robert Musumeci—didn’t stay within the remit of planning and tried to affect laws that have nothing to do with planning... There were a number of proposals centred around the needs of Robert Musumeci and his clients… 

Musumeci as a lawyer? 

Yes. He is an architect and a lawyer. By day he is government’s lawyer who writes planning laws, and by night he is the developers’ architect who tries to bypass these laws. He failed to win many cases so he is trying to shift the goalposts and change the rules in a way that benefits him… 

If an election is held before these bills move forward, these bills are no longer on parliament’s agenda. Isn’t that a chance to go back to the drawing board? 

There’s a chance to go back to the drawing board right now and present a proper reform before the election. Everyone knows that election season is a time when lobbies, including the developers’ lobby, chase political parties to see what they can gain out of them… 

The planning bills are a bargaining chip used by developers to see what they can squeeze out of the parties. When the election is over, government has a mandate to basically do what it wants and it would be much more difficult to mobilise people on this issue after the election. 

Why doesn’t the Prime Minister do what’s just and keep a number of promises he made, and give us a proper reform? 

What are the issues that you and your colleagues on the board aren’t ready to compromise on? 

We are not negotiating. This isn’t a case where a bill has 20 wrong points and we’re willing to let 10 of them go. The entire planning bills are rotten. The only thing that should be saved is the suspension of works [until the appeals process is exhausted]. Everything else is frivolous.  

When you and your colleagues on the board (Claire Bonello and Ingram Bondin) speak, do you speak with one voice? Are you united? 

Yes, definitely. We want the same things. If you look at the four points made by the Ġustizzja għal Artna campaign, the second point concerns the suspension of works which should be equal for all residents. 

Fundamentally, we are saying the same things. The only difference is that the NGOs have been participating in this discussion for years. We [Il-Kollettiv] are the voice of a number of resident groups that will be impacted by these bills. 

I should say, apart from Claire Bonello, I’ve spoken to a number of lawyers and they all agree that the bills are a disaster from the way they were written to what they will bring about… 

Let’s talk about Il-Kollettiv. When this was set up you left the door open for the group to become a political party. Do you have any updates on this? 

We’ve always said that if the conditions to do so are right, we could consider it, but right now, the conditions to launch a political party are simply not there. We’re still focused on what we were doing even before we launched Il-Kollettiv. We’re organising resident groups so that they can be autonomous and have a say on what’s happening outside their front door. 

Opening a party is not a priority and I believe that participation in a democracy doesn’t necessarily require a political party. Our activism, where we discuss policies such as the planning bills, is part of a wider discussion on what country we want to live in and what direction our economy should have.  

We are doing politics with a small ‘p’. But I think it’s crucial to focus on what’s essential right now. We’ve seen different negative situations in different places with the silver lining being that they’ve brought different people together to work for their localities and propose solutions. 

Each locality has its own story and reality. We love learning about what’s happening on the ground from these people but there’s also a sense of community that is slowly starting to grow.