The Commissioner for the Environment within the Ombudsman's office has again stressed that legislation should be amended to give the ERA a power of veto on development applications which in its opinion have a detrimental impact on the environment.

The Ombudsman released a statement earlier today. "Until such time that such amendments are enacted the ERA will have to endure situations where development masked as 'agricultural stores', complete with interconnecting spiral staircases to different levels, and recorded declarations and drawings that the ultimate use will be residential changed to show 'agricultural use' merely to obtain approval, are passed by the Board."

"In this situation, the responsibility clearly rests on the Commissions and Boards to go beyond the 'checklist' approach and refuse applications which are clearly submitted under a pretext, even if they tick all the right boxes."

"The discretion to reject such applications lies within the remit of each Commission and Board member, just as much as the discretion to approve what is a justifiable case even if it does not tick all the right boxes," the statement read. "Development should ultimately benefit the whole community not just the developer"

The statement also referred to a press release by Nature Trust Malta, which appealed to various authorities to take action to address the alarming ODZ sprawl.  Included in this appeal is a request for the Commissioner for Environment and Planning within the Ombudsman's Office to air his concern on the matter.

"The Commissioner has already aired such concerns whenever he felt that proposed legislative or administrative changes did not give the proper assurances that such changes would lead to an improvement in environmental protection."

"As early as 2013, the Commissioner had suggested the drafting of a marine subject plan to regulate development along the coast and surrounding seas, in order to increase the level of protection for vulnerable coastal and marine zones around the islands. The suggestion was eventually incorporated into the Strategic Plan for Environment and Development (SPED) launched in 2014."

"In September 2015, the Commissioner expressed his serious reservations to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition about the proposed MEPA demerger legislation, highlighting what he perceived as the weakness of the new Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) in blocking development in ODZ areas, due to the legislation which gave it a mere consultee role in the decision-making process."

"These reservations were once again expressed in August 2016 through a letter communicated to the Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change and the Parliamentary Secretary for Planning and Simplification of Administrative Processes, when it became clear that this weakness was being confirmed by statistics on the number of ODZ applications which were being approved despite the objections by the ERA."