Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/878567
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 15 Interview Malta needs to urgently upgrade its infrastructure at all levels if it is to compete in a globalised property market. CHRIS GRECH, CEO of real estate agency Dhalia, argues that poor planning and enforcement threatens the current property boom... and warns against complacency in the rental sector. development, too these are the challenges the au- thorities are faced with. But ac- tion needs to be taken. What sort of action? If you were to prioritise the problems and come up with possible solutions, what would you start with? We need to conduct a deep study into the movement of peo- ple: the footfall, the modus oper- andi, the day-to-day realities on the ground. If, for example, we issue permits for a development which will increase the neigh- bourhood population by 300... and there's going to be 20 more shops… what happens if there's only a small side-street to cater for deliveries? Or if we designate a zone to be pedestrianised... how are cars going to be re-routed? Would it be possible to excavate tunnels for that purpose? This should really be automatic: I shouldn't have to even say it. It is how it's done in mainland Europe, as far as I know. Development and proper planning should go hand in hand. It's a pity, because we have a great product here. We still have a beautiful country, when all is said and done. We just need to take better care of that product... Isn't that the crux of the matter, though? One of the main environmental concerns with the construction industry is that it is effectively ruining that product: not just because of urban sprawl spilling into the countryside, but because development itself lessens the quality of life in residential areas. Is there too much construction going on at the moment? I understand the concern; but then again, what can you do? Remember that the demand for land-use has changed over the years. Nobody wants to live in big, old townhouses any more: they prefer to live in apartments. So they sell the house, it gets demol- ished, and apartments are built instead. That's the way it's going: everything is changing. We used to have residential areas mixed with things like me- chanics' garages at street-level... now, this is no longer acceptable. A huge hotel with a lot of empty spaces that didn't have any value... it will be pulled down and rebuilt as apartments. So we're going into a redevelopment phase. And it's not just affecting residential de- velopment: even the retail sector, for instance. People today prefer to shop in malls, rather than on the high street. High street shops in areas like Hamrun are closing down for lack of demand. They will probably be converted from ground-floor out- lets, into small one-bedroomed apartments than can be rented out. There is a lot of scope for re- development in Malta. I believe very strongly in redevelopment, rather than new development. And much more than expand- ing development zones... which is a non-starter. I agree that there should never be any new develop- ment outside the existing devel- opment zones... Fair enough, but redevelopment within the zones still has an impact on the quality of life. Why should people pay high rent to live in an area which is permanently affected by all the inconvenience of construction: noise, dust, traffic, etc? I see your point; but the fact is that, when the market is good, you will always have a lot of con- struction. In the last few years, we have experienced a boom. This is boom-time... you have to ac- cept this. Eventually, however, the market stabilises. It's always been this way... Has it though? The market didn't stabilise in the USA in 2008/9, and it triggered a worldwide crisis... there is no guarantee that the property bubble will not burst. In fact, you warned about this yourself in a recent interview... Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the bubble cannot burst. It can, if we do things wrongly. If we create a bad reputation for our- selves as a country; if we engineer our own crisis through bad man- agement.... if we screw up, yes, the bubble can burst. The most we can hope to do is minimise the impact. And the only way to do that is for us to go out there, to be proactive, and seek new markets. That's the best we can do. Hav- ing said that: there is still no guar- antee that the bubble won't burst. I don't think anyone can play Nostradamus here. But we can be clever, and ensure that we don't overstretch ourselves too quickly. I don't think it's a good idea to have seven or eight major pro- jects happening at the same time in Paceville, for example. It could create an oversupply... But if there are too many projects going on in Paceville... what about the entire country? And if the idea is to protect our product, in order to market it and attract more upmarket tenants from overseas... aren't we doing the opposite by turning Malta into a giant building site? Things can be managed better, that's for sure. I can confirm that we do occasionally lose clients... because of the dirt in the streets, for instance. In fact, one thing which really upsets me about Malta is how dirty it is. Let's not pretend it isn't. It's dirty. Peo- ple from Northern Europe are amazed by how dirty Malta is. There's no enforcement on keeping our streets clean; on keeping our pavements perfectly tiled. And there's not enough maintenance, either. Going into a project also means providing maintenance every day. It's not about 'building something nice'. You have to keep that 'something' maintained, for it to remain 'nice'. Then you go into the countryside, and find it full of dumped litter. Or our tourist areas... sometimes, right outside our offices here in St Julian's, it stinks because of all the garbage from restaurants. So yes, we do have a problem. These are the areas we need to address. We need to clean up our country. And we can do some- thing about it: we are a clean people. Our homes are all clean. So we have the potential: it's just about the responsible depart- ments getting their act together, and actually doing something about it once and for all.