NGOs warn local plan revision will erase town and ODZ protections

A coalition of NGOs under the Gustizzja Għal Artna campaign have hit back at Prime Minister Robert Abela’s statements on planning reform, warning that any revision of the Local Plans will be met with resistance.

The groups were responding to remarks reported by MaltaToday on Saturday, in which Abela said the government and the ENGOs had reached “more of a convergence on a number of points” on the proposed Planning Reform.

“There has been no convergence at all with the Government about the proposed Planning Reform,” the NGOs said in a statement. “The few revisions that were proposed left a dangerous and unsalvageable reform which should not be presented again.”

The groups said several proposals they had submitted, covering the suspension of appeals, an end to sanctioning in outside development zone (ODZ) areas, enforcement against illegal structures, and the future of rationalisation sites had not even been acknowledged by the government.

The NGOs said they were “extremely concerned” by Abela’s announcement that he would revise the Local Plans if no consensus was reached on the wider Planning Reform. The Prime Minister had spoken of addressing “injustices and anomalies” created by the 2006 local plan revisions, a phrase the groups said they did not read as relief for communities suffering from overdevelopment.

“By addressing ‘injustices and anomalies’ the Prime Minister is not referring to the relief of our communities from rampant construction,” the NGOs said, “but to further weaken planning regulations and possibly revise the development boundary so as to include more ODZ land into the development zone, rewarding some of the supporters and donors of the ruling party.”

The groups also pointed to what they described as a pattern of partial local plan reviews carried out to benefit specific developers, citing the Tal-Franċiż case in Villa Rosa and the Tal-Malla settlement in Xewkija.

The NGOs questioned whether the same approach used for the Planning Reform, which they said was presented without a single study or impact assessment, affecting 500,000 people, would be repeated in a local plan review.

“The Prime Minister and his political appointees at the Planning Authority do not have the credibility to carry out a review of the Local Plans which is beneficial to the environment of the country,” the statement read.

The groups said the Local Plans remain “one of the few tools currently restraining predatory overdevelopment” and gave notice that their campaign of resistance would be extended to cover any revisions. 

They said they would maintain this position until they were satisfied that the process was led by people of known integrity, grounded in scientific studies, and open to genuine public participation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​