"Atrocious" was the word used by Patrick Calleja, the Executive President of Din l-Art Ħelwa, to describe the government's planning reforms, stressing the need for the bills to be withdrawn as NGOs prepare to "take to the streets" in a national protest on Saturday.

"I thought we had reached the bottom, but we hadn't," Calleja said about the proposed reforms.

Before summer the government had announced a set of planning reforms consisting of two bills and two legal notices. Their contents caused an uproar, and a month long public consultation process was eventually held. The two bills deal with appeals regarding Planning permits and amendments to the Development Planning Act. Through the legal notices in question, the government is proposing that illegal developments built prior to 1994 on land located Outside the Development Zone (ODZ), and illegal developments built before 2016 within the development zone, will become eligible for regularisation. It also proposes that illegal developments that took place up until 2024 be eligible for a concession. 

While Planning Minister Clint Camilleri recently said that certain clauses in the Planning Bills would be taken out, Calleja stressed that the eNGOs don't want piecemeal changes. The bills "should be withdrawn because they are atrocious. After they are withdrawn, they should start from scratch, with a proper consultation period with all stakeholders, eNGOs, civil society, taking place, with the aim of having a proper reform that would better our lives, not make them worse and line the pockets of a few people."

Calleja said he is angry at the situation which has spiralled out of control, "getting worse and worse over the years."

Calleja said that "what is happening now in Malta is an effect of something that has been going on for years - the lack of enforcement action and two weights and two measures when it comes to issuing permits. The public see a tower going up in one spot, two towers rising in the middle of Gzira, another in Mriehel, and people start asking why these developers are able to get towers and are being given a red carpet, while when they apply to open a window, for instance, the PA says no. This causes serious exasperation and spurs people on to just ignore the regulations."

He said that this sentiment is manifested in the proliferation of caravans and tent like structures around the coast, illegal boathouses and more. He believes that this is a manifestation of the 'rebellion' and anger at the situation. "People need to get away from the highly urbanised areas that are constantly beleaguered by construction works. At the same time, politicians and the authorities are very reluctant to take any action on these, probably because they believe these people would also start complaining about these other massive constructions."

Asked whether, instead of the concession and regularisation scheme as proposed by the government, there should be more of a focus on enforcement, he said yes. "They should have always been focused on enforcement, and had they done that from the start, we wouldn't be in this situation today, because people would have become more disciplined and understood that they have to abide by regulations."

Regarding the regularisation and concession schemes themselves, Calleja said that the way it is proposed, "anything goes". He is "morally convinced" that they were proposed because "there are some people they want to help out who have problems accessing water and electricity. The concessions will allow illegal developments to finally have these services installed. Not having access to water and electricity was the only deterrent against abusing the system for new developments."

He stressed that the regularisation proposal should not be a blanket cover as is currently proposed. "It should be very limited and carefully studied."

While he believes the concession scheme should be outright scrapped, he said that there are particular cases where regularisation should be allowed, mentioning one such example. 

"A person might have purchased a property 20 years ago in an apartment block, and now when applying to carry out alterations or trying to sell the apartment,  finds out that the shaft is not according to permit drawings. At some point, someone from the Planning Authority would have issued a compliance certificate, so then why should this person now have to pay to regularise that property? The PA should investigate why it gave the compliance certificate in the first place so many years ago, and admit that they should have been more careful. Why should someone, who bought in good faith, now suffer the consequences of the PA's shortcomings? It is very unfair. I think there are many cases like this where regularisation should help, but I don't think that in such cases the person should have to pay."

Such a scheme should not apply to people who knowingly built something illegally, he said.

As for the fines proposed by the government for future irregularities, he believes that they will make a difference if the authorities enforce. "What always worries me is that Malta is so small that there will be two weights and two measures in the enforcement." He also fears that the regularisation and concession scheme is also sending a message that the authorities might just repeat it in the future and said that it frustrates those that abide by the rules.

Bills 'have nothing to do with improving the quality of our lives'

Calleja said that eNGOs, including Din l-Art Ħelwa, had been asking for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss some reforms for years. "When you talk about reforms, they obviously have the connotation that these would somehow improve the situation, or that there would be some form of progress. But these bills which have been presented as reforms, are not reforms at all. They have nothing to do with improving the quality of our lives at all, and I would say that they do the contrary."

He said that originally the idea was to amend an issue with appeals. "We ended up with a number of cases - swimming pools, penthouses - where construction was already completed when the court of appeal delivered its judgement to revoke the permit. That was absolutely terrible, and it is still like that today. So our major request at the time was that this needs to change immediately. The government, at some point, started saying it was going to change it, and that it was not right. We were under the impression that this is what they were working on, to not allow construction while an appeal was ongoing." But then the government published two bills, he said. One of the bills, Bill 143, Calleja added, "has nothing to do with appeals."

One proposal in Bill 143, is for the introduction of a recency rule. Currently, if there is an inconsistency between policies, the existing Act establishes a hierarchy of priorities. But the Bills propose that if there is a conflict between plans and subsidiary legislation, then the latest policies would take precedence. He said that "the framework on which our planning system is based will be completely dismantled leaving it wide open to abuse. We recently won the Fort Cambridge appeal on the fact that the development brief said the maximum height of the proposed development should be four storeys. It was approved by the Planning Authority with 30 storeys," he said, questioning what would have happened if the hierarchy is dismantled.

Calleja gave an example of the kind of impact a change can have. "In 2007, a document was issued to interpret the local plan, and contained the interpretation of building height." He said that the question asked at the time was: "If there is a proposal for a three floor building which can be fitted within the height of an existing building or a building with two or less floors and the design is highly commendable but the number of floors is higher than that indicated in a Local Plan, would such a proposal be acceptable?"  The interpretation document read:  "Aesthetic considerations or the height of the building are not the only considerations which needs to be taken into account when assessing a development planning application. Floors are also centres of activity generation. This is a very important concept and not giving it the due consideration will result in increasing the development intensity in an area over and above that which is statutorily indicated in a local plan. Therefore, unless the local plan's policy or its interpretation indicate otherwise, development proposals should strictly adhere to the number of floors stipulated in an approved local plan." 

"In 2024, the authority came out with a new interpretation document for the interpretation of height limitations," he said, adding that the document indicated that the number of floors no longer mattered and that the height would be based on the height in metres. The original reasoning went out the window, he said.

Regarding Bill 144, which deals with planning appeals, one of the issues Calleja highlights is the introduction of a €5,000 fine if the Tribunal considers an appeal application to be frivolous or vexatious, "and it cannot be appealed. You need to see this clause together with what the government has proposed in the other Bill, which is going to dismantle the whole framework on how applications are considered."

Calleja, among other things, also aired concerns at proposals that would allow 75% of owners of a block to apply to change the building height. 

"If 75% of owners of a block of terraced houses decide that they want to change the height limitation and apply for a Planning Control application, they would get it. The Planning CEO tried to justify this procedure by saying that in Parliament the Constitution can be changed with a 2/3rds majority. You cannot compare the two issues. The Constitution would not be amended to infringe anybody's rights. If I'm an owner in the middle of such a block, having bought there specifically to live in a two-storey zone with a low population density, you can't have a situation where if 75% of the owners suddenly want to build, they can bury you in the middle." He asked whether the 25% just don't matter. "If they all invested in PV panels, in having light in their yards and homes... it's not right at all. You cannot infringe on their rights. It also opens the whole system to abuse. You could have somebody speculating and buying everybody out knowing he or she can obtain some tower on the site. It boils down to bullying."

The protest will not be a one-off event, Calleja said. "We had the grim reaper event in front of Parliament which was part of this campaign, and it will go on until politicians realise that the bills have to be removed."

Regarding further action aside from the protest, he said that the eNGOs are constantly talking to each other. "It definitely will not stop now." Asked whether there is legal action which the eNGOs are considering, he said "it will also be considered. But now it's time to take to the streets!".