Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1367395
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 MAY 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo 'Steal a little and they throw you in jail…' I imagine there are plenty of Bob Dylan fans out there who'd be able to complete that song lyric... but even if you are unfamiliar with Dylan's track 'Sweetheart Like You' – from the 1983 album 'Infidels' – you'll probably still be able to work out the rest anyway. '… steal a lot, and they make you king'. Yes, indeed: small wonder Bob Dylan would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. For there, in just two short sentenc- es, he managed to encapsulate a truism that is not just funda- mentally undeniable, in itself… but now visible almost every- where you care to look in this country. How many cases have we seen, over the years, in which small, petty offenders bear the full brunt of their action's legal con- sequences… while others, guilty of far more grievous crimes, are not only let off the hook entirely: but often even given 'red-carpet treatment' by the authorities? In all honesty, I could prob- ably fill up a year's worth of newspapers just with examples from Malta's construction and development industry alone: go- ing back 20 years ago, or more. I still remember writing about the Solemar (now Riviera) Ho- tel in Marfa in the late 1990s, for instance. On that occasion, developer Charles Polidano was refused a permit to extend his hotel by another storey… only to build the illegal extension an- yway, and eventually get it ret- roactively sanctioned by MEPA (today's Planning Authority). And if that case still stands out so much in my memory, all these years later… well, it's because you can't really ask for a more blatantly transparent example of how Dylan's 'king-making' pro- cess actually works in practice (at least, for those who 'steal a lot'). For starters: it wasn't as though MEPA didn't try to enforce its regulations, in that particular in- stance. As I recall, it had cut off the hotel's electricity supply at the time, and even slapped Pol- idano himself with a garnishee order. But Polidano's reaction was to simply threaten to fire his 1,000+ workforce… and, hey presto! In an instant, electricity was miraculously restored; fro- zen accounts were miraculously defrosted… and not only was the illegality itself sanctioned against a Lm200,000 fine – which, let's face it, Polidano could easily have recouped with a single Ga- la Evening at his (equally illegal, equally sanctioned) Montekristo Estates – but the Riviera Hotel itself went on to benefit from at least half a dozen other exten- sions ever since. From a 61-bedroom hotel built in the 1960s, it has now grown to 346 rooms (extending both outwards, and upwards, in the process). All with the retroactive blessing of the Planning Author- ity… And yet – blatant though the travesty of enforcement may have been, at the time – the Solemar Hotel is today but a footnote in the long and de- pressingly repetitive history of Malta's planning failures over the past 20 years. Not content with having built four-fifths of a hotel illegally, the same Charles Polidano al- so got away – after similarly farcical enforcement attempts – with an entire illegal zoo at his Montekristo Estates (just as he now trying to get away with unlicensed food-vans in various parts of the island). And having been so success- ful in publicly arm-wresting the PA into submission, every single time… others have predictably followed his lead. At least two other illegal zoos – one in Sig- giewi, another in Rabat – have since been likewise sanctioned by the PA. Meanwhile, one par- ticular developer in Gozo (and his extended family, it seems) has clearly made his life mission to beat Polidano's record, once and for all. Illegal rubble walls all over Nadur; illegal structures in San Blas… some of which were not merely 'built without a permit'; but also on land which wasn't even owned by the devel- oper, at the time… And yet: faced with all this, the PA has not merely been 'ac- commodating'… but it has even altered its own policies to incen- tivise precisely the same sort of 'build now, sanction later' ap- proach, across the entire board. In 2016, for instance, it even launched an official scheme to encourage owners of illegal- ly-built properties to apply for 'retro-active sanctioning' them- selves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this scheme was hugely success- ful for the two years that it was supposed to last (so much so, that it was extended by another year). The PA's 2019 report, for in- stance, revealed that 591 appli- cations had been received for that year alone. That's almost 600 developments, in a single year, which were either totally, or partially built without a valid planning permit… but which the PA were only too happy to regularise: naturally, in exchange for a small fee (And I really mean 'small', by the way: it worked out at "€1,500 for a 150-square me- tre apartment and €4,300 for a penthouse of 100 square me- tres." In other words, barely even the cost of a single month's rent for one, solitary apartment…) And this, too, is why the con- tinued uglification of these is- lands has become more or less inevitable. The 'fines' imposed by the Planning Authority are so utterly paltry, compared to the potential profits yielded by any specific illegal development… that many developers simply factor them into their running expenses, as if there were so such thing as 'building regula- tions' at all. And besides: when the PA is not too busy 'rewarding' prop- erty speculators for breaking the law… it is usually hard at work trying to tweak the building reg- ulations themselves: as a rule, to permit as much construction as humanly possible, with the least possible concern for environ- mental or aesthetic considera- tions. In an interview with this news- paper, Qala mayor Paul Butti- gieg told me that the PA even changed the local plans of his locality – without informing the council – to permit the devel- opment of a controversial (and certainly illegal, without that change) hotel/yacht marina in Ħondoq ir-Rummien. And just to leave us in no doubt whatsoever as to their true in- tentions: the change was specif- ically to re-designate that area as one for 'Tourism and Marine Related Purposes': instead of for 'Afforestation', as it was until 2016. (I mean… make it just a bit more obvious, why don't you?) Even this week's approval of a five-storey hotel on Rabat's Saqqajja Hill – which threatens the majestic Mdina skyline; and (according to the PA's own EIA report) possibly even the geo- logical foundations upon which that city was built – seems to conform to the same general pattern. For while it may not count as a direct example of 'retro-active sanctioning'… it is still a case where the Planning Authority overturned all its past refusals, over years of repeated applica- tions for development on the same site, against all the previ- ous negative recommendations of both the ERA and the Super- intendence of Cultural Heritage. So from "build today, apply for permit tomorrow"… it sim- ply becomes: "Apply today; and if you don't succeed, just keep applying… and applying… and applying… because sooner or later, it's a safe bet that the red carpet will be rolled out for you as well (just as it was for all the others)…". But all these cases (and like I said: there are a LOT more) deal only with one side of Bob Dy- lan's equation: 'steal a lot, and they make you king'. What about the ones who 'steal a little'? What opportunities are they given, to have their minor