Ombudsman wants legal changes after MaltaToday probe on ERA

The planning ombudsman David Pace is calling for a reform of planning structures, on the back of a MaltaToday probe that revealed that the Environment and Resources Authority has been overruled by the Planning Authority in 69% of cases concerning planning applications outside development zones (ODZ).

At present, the PA’s decision-making boards can ignore the ERA’s objections and still issue a permit.

But Pace is proposing changes to legislation to ensure that applications that are objected to by 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.

In the annual report, presented by the Office of the Ombudsman, Pace decreed the current state of affairs as one “which does not positively reflect on the ERA’s stature.”

He also argued that “the depiction of ERA as toothless is not far from the truth.” 

Pace said it was useless to justify the current state of affairs by referring to the right of appeal given to the ERA against PA decisions. “Statistics show how impossible it would be for the ERA to file appeals in every case.”

Last month, environment minister José Herrera also announced he had set up an ad hoc board in the wake of the MaltaToday probe last December, to investigate the high percentage of cases in which ODZ applications had been approved by the Planning Authority, despite objections by ERA.

Herrera told MaltaToday that he had been “alarmed” by the findings, and had immediately sought the agreement of both authorities to take part in a board. 

“With the agreement of the PA and the ERA, I am appointing a ministerial board to investigate this problem and to report back to both authorities and to me as to why this inequality exists,” he said. “The chairman of the PA’s former Natural Heritage Advisory Committee, Judge Joseph David Camilleri, will be chairing this board.”

MaltaToday’s probe had revealed that the ERA, the authority demerged from the planning authority under Labour’s planning reform, was overruled by the dominant PA on 61 of its objections to the planning permits for developments outside development zones (ODZ) over five weeks between 1 November and 6 December. 

The total of 88 ODZ developments approved consisted of minor developments such as the development of new agricultural stores, the regularisation of illegally built rural structures, the redevelopment or extension of farmhouses, and swimming pools and ancillary farm developments.  

During this period, the PA turned down 37 of these ODZ applications (30%). 

The ERA, which is consulted over each of these applications, sent detailed memos on each case, in some of them objecting to the “piecemeal approach to development” which sees owners of farmhouses applying for more development once an initial permit is issued.