Spatial planning: implementation is the key

Article from Malta Independent.

The PL’s positive contribution to the healthy Mepa debate that unfolded in the House over various sittings in second reading and for some 12 separate committee stage meetings went to prove that when I wrote in January this year that the PL would play a pro-active role rather than a reactive one on Mepa reform, I spoke with a sense of commitment, because as a parliamentary group we were already in total agreement to adopt such a positive and constructive approach.

While regretting that the government discarded our well articulated proposals for the separation of entities between the planning and environmental arms of Mepa, as well as the establishment of an effective parliamentary scrutiny committee on the environment and development modelled on the PAC – public accounts committee structure – it gave us some satisfaction that, in spite of earlier scepticism about our specific proposal that we needed to replace the archaic structure plan with spatial planning, at the end of the day that is exactly what we did.

The mere notion and mention of a structure plan was abandoned. Spatial planning has been incorporated in the final Bill to ensure a more comprehensive and holistic approach, as a result of which Mepa would merely monitor the progress being made, while the strategy itself will be co-coordinated by Cabinet to ensure that maximum synergy is achieved between the various ministries, government agencies, departments and authorities –

something that has been badly lacking so far.

What is ironic is that when we first floated the idea of going for spatial planning, our proposal was first met with stony silence.

Then when the debate began to unfold, the question was asked as to what we really meant by spatial planning as well as what’s in a name.

But then this was symptomatic of the overall approach the government adopted in our regard the moment Mepa reform came up on the agenda.

Some questioned what had happened to the independent study that we were meant to have commissioned.

Whether it had been set up, held meetings and/or presented us with a report. The reply is definitely yes on all three counts. As for the meetings, all leading NGOs and organisations can testify to that since the commission tried to consult as many entities as possible.

When we came forward with our four point set of main proposals, it was so evident the government intended to rubbish the PL a priori that Dr Gonzi dismissed them as vague and nonsensical, and claimed that what we were proposing would create new bureaucratic problems and even necessitate the setting up of a third authority to decide the way forward.

We were even accused of duplicating resources through our proposal and incurring additional expenses while allegedly creating more confusion among applicants and eliminating the current one stop shop principle – as if it ever existed in practice.

Hardly anyone from the government side bothered to point out that even statistics were on our side on this issue.

The number of pending applications at Mepa had reached the lowest figure in 2002 prior to the merger and not after the merger took place. Since the merger came about, the caseload kept on increasing dramatically and, notwithstanding the substantial decrease in the submissions of new applications during the last three years, the case load kept on increasing. This proved the Prime Minister’s claim that the merger led to more efficiency and better decision making as being totally false and incorrect.

While Dr Mario de Marco quoted Martin Scicluna (a person we hold in high regard) ad nauseum to justify the retention of the present Mepa single entity structure, at no time did he or the government bother to quote what the Kummissjoni Interdjocesana Ambjent had to say on Mepa Reform on 27 July 2009: “It may be that one day we will realise the need for a central and overreaching environmental protection authority which would play second fiddle to none… by having such a separate environmental protection authority, the management of our limited environmental resources will be greatly improved… consistency and coherence in such matters will thus be safeguarded…”

Hardly anyone from the government side had the decency to point out that having two separate entities is considered to be the best practice in the absolute majority of EU countries, since this would ensure the creation of more balance between the environment and development in the context of sustainable development.

On spatial planning one would have expected government to react positively to it from the very beginning, particularly since it has replaced structure plans in most European jurisdictions since the mid and late 90s and is today even termed as such at ministerial level, i.e. Ministry for Spatial Planning in all types of European countries, from the highly modern and competitive EU member state of The Netherlands to a relatively small country still finding its own feet – Kosovo.

Much to the government’s surprise a commission it set up – The Mepa Policy Review Board when presenting its findings – way after we had publicly pronounced ourselves for spatial planning – had recommended an actual shift to a National Policy of Spatial Planning.

On 23 February I had speculated about the fact that it still remained to be seen, particularly in the light of this Policy Review Board proposal, whether the government would have the political strength and will to embrace the PL’s original proposal, particularly in view of the then prevalent silence from the government side.

What we had found even more mystifying is that rather than having this policy review board’s findings published before the draft bill was published, and thus taking on board some of its recommendations a priori, only its executive summary was published days after the draft bill came out. The full report was tabled in the House on the day proper when the second reading of the Bill commenced.

The relevance of our proposal was heightened by the fact that the structure plan always remained a dead letter – in the sense that it was kept static, was never reviewed, never took account of various entities that were set up in the process, there was hardly any planning legislation in place when it was established and the statistics revealed by the Policy Review Board merely confirmed the obvious.

Primarily that:

● the Plan had 320 structure plan policies of which only 56 were strategic in nature i.e. 18 per cent

● 93 (29 per cent) were not even planning linked

● And a number of policies mentioned in the plan were never implemented.

When we reached the conclusion of the committee stage discussion, I repeated the appeal that I made at the beginning of the whole Mepa debate in the House.

First and foremost, unless specific deadlines are announced and adhered to and an efficient and effective implementation process is underway, we risk seeing this spatial planning die a natural death even though both sides are now committed to see it work under the aegis of a Strategic Plan for the Environment & Development.

During an excellent presentation made at a Chamber of Architects and the Chamber of Planners seminar last Saturday, an important definition of spatial planning was presented. Primarily that it gives geographic expression to economic, social, cultural and ecological policies of society.

If introduced effectively, spatial planning should be conducive to better use and more emphasis on open spaces and the enhancement of ordinary citizens’ quality of life together with more judicious land use.

This should gain added relevance given the government’s claim that it intends to legislate shortly in favour of sustainable development.

All this could arguably distance Mepa itself from continuing to be perceived as a planning driven organisation, in spite of the government’s claim that it does not want the environmental component to remain relegated to the role of Cinderella.

Way back in January, Mario de Marco had argued that the Mepa law is not the reform and that the reform must be the whole process.

I hope that when we take stock of Mepa within a year’s time we will already be in an excellent position to judge whether we will have continued to have more of the same or not.

There is a big difference between being an eternal optimist and a gullible person. 

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