Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1511356
I'D be lying if I said that I had 'high expectations' of Emmanuel Camill- eri, when he was appointed as the new Planning Authority chairman in June 2022. Not, mind you, because of any- thing Mr Camilleri himself had said or done, at any point before that date (truth be told: it was the first time I'd ever even heard his name mentioned, anywhere). But more because of the nature of the role it- self: which – let's face it – had only ever been entrusted, in the past, to the sort of people who would always favour 'construction/development', over 'environmental/heritage pro- tection'… with results that are now painfully visible, almost everywhere you look. It's a bald statement, I know: but one which I could easily substanti- ate, by simply enumerating all the controversial permit approvals ever granted by the PA, over the past 30 or so years. Naturally, I won't bore you with a full list here. But let's just say, for now, that almost every single time the Planning Authority has been ever called upon, to fulfil its remit of 'ensuring sustainable development in Malta', and 'safeguarding the en- vironment, to achieve a sustainable quality of life' – as per its own Mis- sion Statement, please note - it has somehow almost always managed to do the very opposite, instead. In other words: the PA has con- sistently acted as though its remit was to 'protect the right of devel- opers and entrepreneurs, to make as much money as possible through the wholesale destruction of Malta's natural and cultural heritage… and to Hell with all other considerations'. Under those circumstances, it was unrealistic to expect that Emmanuel Camilleri would surprise us all, by becoming the first-ever PA chair- man to actually do his job properly, for a change. Nonetheless, I did have one small expectation (albeit not exactly very 'high') of the latest person to assume that role. Somewhat naively, I ex- pected Mr Camilleri to at least be familiar with what his remit actually IS… before proceeding to defecate all over it, like every PA Board chair- man has done before him. But no. Judging by the latest PA board decision, to approve a 22-apartment block just 150 metres from one of Malta's most cherished World Heritage Sites – Gganti- ja temples in Gozo – it seems that Camilleri didn't even bother reading the job-description, before accept- ing his new appointment. He seems entirely unaware, for instance, that one of his most fun- damental responsibilities, as PA chairman, is to implement the Operational Guidelines of Mal- ta's numerous World Heritage Sites (including, but not limited to, Ggantija); and that those guidelines require – BY LAW – that a 'Herit- age Impact Assessment' has to be conducted, before any development application can even be considered (still less, approved) in or around the site's buffer zone. Now: in case you're unwilling to take my own word for all of the above (and to be fair, I wouldn't blame you)… well, try taking his in- stead. At last Thursday's PA Board Meet- ing, Emmanuel Camilleri made three statements about the afore- mentioned Ggantija project. He "insisted that heritage impact as- sessments were not in the remit of the authority"; he "insisted that UN- ESCO had never communicated di- rectly with the Planning Authority"; and lastly, he "pointed out that the Superintendence for Cultural Herit- age had never withdrawn its consent for the development." And what do you know? It turns out that all three of those statements are at best 'misleading'; at worst, downright 'WRONG'. But before proceeding: let's take a look at the actual permit application itself, shall we? Starting with a small detail that many news reports seem to be overlooking, right now… i.e., that the proposed development is not (as often erroneously reported) 'on the periphery of the World Her- itage Site buffer zone'; but rather, 'slap-bang in the middle of it'. As the attached image – lifted from the PA's own website – amply confirms, the entire footprint of this '22-apartment block' lies square- ly WITHIN the Ggantija Temples Buffer Zone: after changes were made to the original scheduling, back in 2015 (that's eight years ago, folks…) And as UNESCO itself also informs us, on its website: "For the pur- poses of effective protection of the nominated property, a buffer zone is an area surrounding the nomi- nated property which has COM- PLEMENTARY LEGAL AND/OR CUSTOMARY RESTRICTIONS [my emphasis] placed on its use and development to give an added layer of protection to the property." I need hardly add that one of these 'legal restrictions' is the undertaking of a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA). So for the past eight years, the PA has been obliged by law to conduct an HIA, with regard to the Ggantija development project… and yet, unaccountably, never did. But back to those three statements, which I shall now examine one by one: "Heritage Impact Assessments are not in the remit of the Planning Au- thority" Sorry, Mr Camilleri, but… yes, they are. The Development Planning Act of 2016 makes it abundantly clear that the designated entity responsi- ble for ALL aspects of environmen- tal/heritage protection, in this coun- ty, is in fact the Planning Authority. Moreover – as noted by the Kamra Tal-Periti – "all development with- in the buffer zones of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Malta must be carried out in compliance with the relevant international conserva- tion charters, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) charters, in- cluding the Venice Charter, the Bur- ra Charter, and the Nara Document on Authenticity." Both the UNESCO convention, and all those other international treaties – not to mention the PA's own mission statement - clearly identify none other than Malta's Planning Authority, as the regulato- ry body that is responsible for actu- ally implementing such legal obliga- tions. So exactly how the PA chairman can so cavalierly deny that the imple- mentation of those conventions (in- cluding 'HIAs') falls squarely within his own authority's remit – when there quite frankly isn't any other entity, on the entire island, that is legally empowered to implement them – is anyone's guess, really. 2) 'UNESCO had never commu- nicated directly with the Planning Authority' To be fair, this one's more 'mis- leading', than 'downright wrong'… but still, what the PA chairman is suggesting here, is directly at odds with the facts of the case as they un- folded. Let me put that another way: it is perfectly true that 'UNESCO had never communicated directly with the Planning Authority'… but then again, UNESCO was never MEANT to do that, in the first place. Had the PA chairman bothered ac- tually reading that job description of his, he would have realised that there is a protocol governing how such maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 NOVEMBER 2023 10 OPINION The PA is supposed to protect Malta's cultural heritage… not destroy it Raphael Vassallo