Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/219723
10 News maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2013 Nailing Caqnu: Labo By clamping down on the cowboy of construction, the Muscat administration seeks legitimacy for its pro-development bias. By can it accommodate the construction lobby while acting tough on its bad boys, asks JAMES DEBONO. THE timing of Thursday's enforce- ment action against illegalities on Charles Polidano's Montekristo Estate on the eve of a national protest by environmentalists suggests that the government is intent on sending a strong message, and that despite its clear pro-development bias expressed in new planning policies, it has no strings attached to powerful construction magnates like 'iċ-Ċaqnu'. The spectacular enforcement action against Polidano comes just three days after the same government issued a draft policy paving the way for an onslaught of medium and high-rise development in overdeveloped localities like Sliema, Gzira, St Paul's Bay and Marsaskala; and weeks after issuing a draft policy allowing new Planning and environmental destruction at the behest of construction developers and speculators abetted by MEPA (right) is one of Malta's hottest of potatoes. Below: environmentalists congregate for a national protest against the widening of development zones. Opposite, clockwise from top right: Charles Polidano welcomes former PN secretary-general Joe Saliba to the opening of Poligas; 2008, Green party Alternattiva Demokratika reveal the damning report showing that MEPA irregularly issued a permit for Polidano's Lidl supermarket in Safi; Polidano and then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi at Poligas; and the sign warning Lidl shoppers in Luqa that the supermarket is in a public safety zone due to the airport runway. dwellings and facilities in ODZ areas, including in buffer zones to Natura 2000 sites. The political symbolism of an action against the bête noire of the environmental lobby is surely a potent one. Ċaqnu's omnipotence came to symbolize the impotence of the previous administration, perceived as being accommodating towards the illegalities committed by the construction magnate, and culminating with enduring slogans like 'Vote Gonzi Get Ċaqnu' during environmental protests. By hitting out at Ċaqnu while promoting policies favouring highrise buildings and ODZ developments – which effectively placate the construction lobby among others – Labour seems to have embarked on a precarious balancing act between its pro-development inclination and the expectations of the electorate for a clampdown on illegalities. Perhaps this fits in Muscat's frame of mind: that of accommodating big developers and the even more numerous legion of small developers and property owners through changes in the planning regime, while being strong against acts of outright banditry by developers of Polidano's ilk. Still this path is fraught with danger. For Polidano is known not to be scared of using his workers as bargaining chips: in the 1990s he threatened to sack workers following hints that MEPA was to clamp down on his Għar Lapsi quarry in Siggiewi. The Polidano files Enforcement against Polidano's illegalities at Montekristo made the news this week simply because similar illegalities by the same group were tolerated for so long in the past by subsequent Nationalist governments. It was only in September 2012 that MEPA's enforcement team carried out a direct action operation on two large sites adjacent to Polidano's Poligas compound, blocking the entrance to two illegal depots littered with scrap, vehicles and heavy machinery. The illegal dumping had been going on since at least 2004. Yet this run-of-the-mill action against a blatant abuse assumed a highly symbolic value of rupture between the PN and the construction magnate. On its own, this action raised speculation of Polidano's change of political allegiance even if this has never been proved. Polidano immediately tested the waters as soon as the new Labour government was elected, by continuing illegal works at his Hal Farrug complex. MEPA officials immediately intervened a few days after the election to stop these works in the area previously sealed in September Will the PN try to exploit Polidano's blackmail, or will it back the government in confronting his rampant abuse? 2012. Judging by comments by new MEPA chief executive Johann Buttigieg, MEPA is willing to accommodate Polidano by sanctioning some of his illegal developments. Buttigieg confirmed that MEPA was holding talks with the group about the illegal development, "discussing what simply could not be tolerated and what could possibly be sanctioned". But he said it could not accept a situation where Polidano was blatantly proceeding with illegalities while discussions were taking place on actually bending regulations to accommodate him. This suggests that the new government is still following in the same footsteps of the previous government, by regularizing Polidano's illegal developments when it will be less disposed to tolerate cowboy tactics. MEPA's negotiation spirit however is contrasted with the more belligerent tone adopted by MEPA lawyer Robert Abela in a court application against Polidano's abuses. In the application Abela claimed that the Polidanos were trying to play the victim by saying that their property would be damaged by the MEPA direct action. "What they were not saying was that the property was completely illegal, abusive and an insult to citizens as it lacked all the necessary permits." Building an empire To see how the planning regime favored this particular construction magnate one has to simply turn back the clock to the late 1990s. Polidano first applied for an extension of the Solemar hotel in Marfa back in 1997, but despite a clear negative recommendation by the Planning Directorate, the extension was approved. In 1998, a new application for an expansion was refused in 2000. Despite the