Government has responded to the Chamber of Architects, who yesterday expressed their concern about the regularisation for development scheme.

“This law is aimed, primarily, at property owners who bought property in the past and discovered that they cannot re-sell it as the property has irregularities,” a government statement read.

The statement read that the previous government had introduced a scheme known as CTB, through which an individual could ask the Authority to close its eyes when faced with illegalities in certain situations.

“Unfortunately , many applicants who received a CTB in the past believed they received permission, but in fact this was a concession. This just meant that the authority closed its eyes to the illegality”.

Government wants to solve the problem surrounding many property owners who bought properties in good faith, and cannot re-sell these properties due to the irregularities they contained.

“The previous law also already provides for the possibility of stopping the authority from taking action on illegal properties, when such property is in an urban area built prior to 1993. This, even if the illegality amounted to indelible tarnishing of the urban environment. The Authority, in such cases, could in no way impose conditions for at least one to improve the state of the illegal building."

“Government wants the Authority to be able to act on illegalities that were built prior to 1993, which under the previous law one could ask for them not to be enforced even if they resulted in an indelible tarnishing of the urban environment”.

Government also made clear that this exercise excludes development on ODZ land, and that it has an electoral mandate to implement this measure.

“The legislator did not want this legislation to act as an amnesty, as though everything passes by. In fact, the legal notice gives the Authority the power to impose any condition it deems necessary, including the execution of works within a stipulated time frame that cannot go over a two-year limit. This gives the opportunity for people to solve the problems”.

“An irregular building can be regularised as long as it lies within the development zone. This is limited to residence, or Class 4A and 4B buildings in certain situations. In addition, the Authority must be convinced that the development does not constitute any damage to the amenity, as defined within the Development Control Design Policy, Guidance and Standards 2015”.

They argue that the decisions by the Authority will be made public, and this action does not affect on the Authority’s obligation to execute an enforcement order against those who will not regularise their situation.

Architects find several loopholes

The Chamber of Architects has pointed out several loopholes in the government’s plans to regularise existing development announced yesterday.

In a statement, The Hamra tal-Periti said that in May 2016, it had submitted its formal reactions to the draft Legal Notice regarding regularisation of property. It had expressed its opinion that the draft regulations included too many lacunae and vague requirements, and that it would be appropriate for the legislator to enter into specific consultation with the Kamra, as required by legislation, prior to the promulgation of these regulations. The Kamra also expressed its fears that these regulations will open the door to severe blots in our built landscape, and will serve to promote the laissez faire attitude of certain developers by condoning providing a mechanism for illegalities to become legal.

Although this procedure was presented by the Planning Authority to the profession during a recent information meeting organised by the Kamra tal-Periti for its members, it is with regret that the Kamra tal-Periti notes no specific discussions were undertaken to address such concerns, and that most of the concernrs raised have not been addressed. These include:

-       the fact that the Legal Notice contains many vague statements which give the impression that anything can be regularised, making no distinction between minor irregularities (such as those previously covered by a CTB Concessions) and major ones;

-       the term ‘regularisation’ itself is not defined, neither in the Legal Notice, nor in the main Act;

-       there appears to be no provision for public consultation on individual applications, nor for consultation with various authorities such as the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, the National Commission for Persons with Disability, and others;

-       there appears to be no mechanism for third parties to register an interest in an application unless they had previously reported the illegality to the Authority, and third parties do not have a right of appeal;

-       although some media reports have given the indication that decisions on these applications will be taken at public sittings of the Planning Board, this provision is not specifically stipulated in the Legal Notice;

-       while ODZ properties have been excluded, properties which are located within Urban Conservation Areas or which are themselves scheduled have not been excluded;

-       the main criterion on the basis of which the Authority will determine an application is whether or not it constitutes an ‘injury to amenity’, which is an entirely subjective criterion that it open to wide interpretation;

-       if an application is refused, the applicant is refunded a percentage of the fees of the application, however there is no obligation for the Authority to issue an enforcement notice and/or to request the removal of the illegality.

All of the above observations, and others already published by the Kamra tal-Periti during the public consultation phase, render these new regulations unclear and widely open to interpretation. Above all, they also fail to address the importance of promoting quality of our building stock by allowing illegalities which fall well below the minimum requirements of established regulations to be regularised and made legal.