Architects not excluding strike if government presses on with proposed regulations

The Chamber of Architects isn’t excluding the possibility of a strike, unless changes are made to draft regulations for the construction industry which were published earlier this week.

The draft regulations come in wake of three serious construction site accidents over the last two months, two of which saw homes situated next door to construction sites completely destroyed.

The regulations were published on Monday and were put to a five-day consultation period which ended on Friday.

Giving its initial reaction to the proposed rules, the chamber said on Tuesday described the proposal was ill-thought and a recipe for further confusion and lack of clarity.

Speaking on Newsbook’s Follow-up, chamber president Simone Vella Lenicker said the chamber had written to the parliamentary secretary responsible for the planning, asking for an urgent meeting to discuss the proposed regulations.

Vella Lenicker said that though the chamber had not received a reply, she hoped there would be “give and take on both sides”.

“Depending on what happens on Monday, we have a position that has been agreed to our members,” she said insisting that she did not wish to comment further for the time being.

She however did not say that a strike wasn’t being excluded.  

“We are not going to accept responsibilities that the law doesn’t place on us,” she said.

In a statement also published on Saturday, the chamber insisted that public safety was of paramount importance, again insisting that it was high time that the government “properly addressed in a holistic manner the problems besetting the construction industry, and not through a piecemeal approach”.

“Under Malta’s Civil Code there are only two figures responsible for construction work, namely the architect and the Contractor,” the chamber said. “The role of a site manager, as conceived in the Legal Notice, could only be assumed to be within the contractor’s setup, since the contractor was obliged at law to understand and follow the instructions issued by the architect, and be sufficiently knowledgeable to understand the significance of such instructions.”

It said that while contractors could employ any knowledgeable person to take control of a construction site without diminishing their responsibility in terms of the Civil Code in any way.

Architects must, on the other hand, bear responsibility for all instances where there may have been negligence, or where due diligence was not sufficiently exercised by them in discharging their services.”

The chamber said that during the EGM architects “reaffirmed their commitment to take full responsibility for the tasks that were within their remit”.

“They however demanded that government stops dragging its feet, and immediately takes the necessary steps to ensure that the framework which allows architects to ensure public safety is in place and effective.”

In this context, it said the EGM was demanding that the amendments to the Periti Act, which it said it had been insisting on for 12 years, be approved, full consultation with the chamber.  

It also called on government to immediately enter into discussions with it on the Building and Construction Regulation Framework it has proposed, and to agree on its implementation within a reasonable timeframe.

Furthermore, the chamber said that before setting up the Building and Construction Authority, government should immediately provide the Building Regulation Office with all the necessary financial, human and technical resources it needs.

“Any Legal Notice should, rather than contain technical detail that is better placed in building regulations, include provisions that empower the architect to suspend works, and lodge a report with the Building Regulations Office, without having to relinquish his commission, if the contractor or developer refuse to comply with the architect’s instructions on matters relating to structural integrity,” it said.

Finally, the chamber said that the EGM was also demanding that there be a clear separation “between planning application and permitting processes, and the processes by which building and construction is notified, regulated and monitored”.

“Nearly five years have been wasted as a result of the misguided advice given to Government that the two processes should be brought together under the remit of the Planning Authority.”