Cacopardo calls for household solar rights to be entrenched in planning policy

The right to use solar energy should be entrenched in planning policies to ensure new buildings are able to generate electricity for units within, Carmel Cacopardo said.

The ADPD chairperson said the local plans approved in 14 years ago relaxed height limitations in various localities with the consequence that low-lying residences ended up being sandwiched between apartment blocks.

These dwellings are in a perpetual shadow and cannot benefit from solar energy to generate electricity or operate a solar water heater.

In his Sunday video message Cacopardo said the impact of the increase in the permissible building height is increasing in severity with time as old properties are redeveloped.

“This is resulting in the shadowing of an ever-increasing number of residential units in a number of areas and as a result, solar water heaters and photo voltaic panels installed on a number of roofs in the past years, are now in the shade for a considerable amount of time and practically useless,” Cacopardo said.

He added: “Investments made by a number of our families have been sacrificed on the altar of development greed. Subsidies, including those originating from EU funds, which were utilised to assist the tapping of solar energy have thus been thrown down the drain.”

The ADPD leader urged Energy Minister Miriam Dalli to move ahead expediently on solar rights so that “a history of planning wrongs would commence the long and difficult road of correction”.