Where is Renzo Piano when you need him?

Word of advice for the Armed Forces of Malta: next time you decide to build a couple of giant, concrete… um… things in front of the Floriana bastions… be sure to hire Renzo Piano as your architect. 

This way, even if he goes ahead and designs the exact same sort of monstrosity you’ve just built at Haywharf (and, let’s face it, it’s not too far off from what Piano designed for City Gate anyway), you won’t have to put up with all the outrage and criticism afterwards. 

For this would not be just any old concrete monstrosity to add to all the rest. It would be a ‘Renzo Piano concrete monstrosity’… which also means that, instead of howling with rage at the untold damage you’ve just caused to Malta’s cultural heritage, etc., the same critics would all be falling over themselves to loudly hail the new architectural ‘masterpiece’, before swooning away in a delirium of obsequious adulation.

That’s what they call a ‘win-win’ situation, guys. You get to keep your ugly concrete structure – which reminds me: what the heck is it supposed to be, anyway? – and the rest of the country gets a proud new meaningless architectural feature, to serve as both a tourist attraction as well as an instant Viagra-injection for the cultural elite. 

The only ones left moaning will be the ones who also complained about Renzo Piano’s designs for the new Parliament… and they don’t understand jack shit about anything anyway, so they don’t count.

There is, of course, the small matter that ‘hiring Piano’ would have cost the AFM round about 80 million euros– which is more than this country has actually spent on its military in the entire 50 years since Independence – but hey! That’s a small price for the rest of the country to pay, just so that its armed forces don’t have to put up with a little unfair and unnecessary abuse. 

Besides: maybe with everyone cooing over the latest Piano masterpiece, the AFM wouldn’t have to waste its limited resources on such menial tasks as ‘responding to public criticism’. This would free them all up to concentrate on their much more serious duties, which as we all know involve saving lives at sea, and... um…  building great big concrete ‘things’ in the middle of historical conservation areas.

In fact, that’s why they needed that monstrosity in the first place. Everyone knows you need giant, pointless concrete buildings if you’re going to go around performing military operations. You can’t have one without the other. Why, it’s even in the manual: “A country’s military capability is directly proportionate to the number of unfeasible large concrete edifices it builds, for purposes that could just as easily have been served by much smaller, less obtrusive buildings…” 

There. And just look at the USA as a shining example: its military headquarters, the Pentagon, contains more concrete than all Malta and everything in it, including the Montekristo Estate in Hal Far. And look at them: they’re the biggest military force in the world…

The AFM could have had all that – well, proportionate to its size, at any rate… without all this hullaballoo… just by getting Renzo Piano to design their new eyesore for them. But no! The Maltese military doesn’t need any ‘foreign interference’ in its internal operations. So it just took matters into its own hands… and look what happened. The same structure we would otherwise all be rushing to defend in the media, instantly becomes a receptacle for an entire nation’s indignation and cultural outrage. 

And why? Just to save 80 million measly little euros… how miserly…. 

But back to why it’s so hugely important that we all stop worrying about the environment, and instead learn to love this ugly new wave of ugly, pointless concrete buildings. For God’s sake people: stop being so selfish. All you ever do is moan and groan about the ‘quality of your life’, as though this trifling consideration actually matters in the scheme of things. Well, sorry, folks, but… it doesn’t. Not when ‘national security’ is at stake. And again, it’s all in the manual. This time, a real manual: the National Planning Act, 2006.

We are told, for instance, that “the submission of a formal Development Notification Order was not required where, in the opinion of the minister responsible for the AFM or immigration, the development was urgently required for national security or humanitarian reasons…”

See? And as already explained: you can’t attend to the business of ‘safeguarding national security’ or ‘responding to humanitarian crises’, if you don’t have at least one great big mass of concrete to call your own. And no, it doesn’t matter that the building under construction at Haywharf is actually three times the size of the design in the approved plans. It’s national security, folks. Rules and regulations don’t apply. The AFM can build whatever they like… heck, they could even erect a giant concrete phallus, if they felt it would help defend our country from attack… oh, wait… someone already did that, and plonked it right outside the main AFM headquarters in Luqa… 

But in any case, it doesn’t matter. If the minister decides it’s in the interests of national security… the entire planning division gets its marching orders, and construction goes ahead without a permit.

And rightly so, I hasten to add. Just imagine if Malta’s wartime defences had to go through all this MEPA-style bureaucracy back in the Blitz of 1942. Need to build anti-aircraft batteries around the harbour to protect the Dockyard from imminent Stuka bombardment? Sorry, folks, get in the queue behind everyone else. Meanwhile, your application must go through the superintendence of cultural heritage for approval… you have to provide underground parking for all military vehicles; no permanent alteration permitted on any bastions or historical buildings… at least one quarter of the development has to be accessible to the public… oh, and if you’re lucky you might get a full outline permit in three years’ time…

Yes, well, there wouldn’t be very much left of the Dockyard to defend by then, would there? So no: of course the military gets a special licence to by-pass all known planning regulations. Where national security is at stake, there can be no compromises…

But… then again, there’s also the small matter of who gets to actually decide what constitutes a ‘national security’ purpose… and on what grounds.

Naturally, the same planning law doesn’t ask such irrelevant questions as why, exactly, a massive concrete structure (vaguely resembling the entrance to ‘Jurassic World’) should serve to actually protect the nation, and from what. Even if we concede that the AFM does need better maritime structures to cope with its (mostly naval) operations… we are not told why one particular design should be preferable to another from a purely defence perspective. 

Perhaps the AFM could have just as easily met its exigencies by building a smaller, less conspicuous structure instead… for instance, something that doesn’t actually obliterate an otherwise stunning view of historical, 17th century bastions. Unlike the example of World War Two defence construction, it’s not exactly as though the air raid sirens are already wailing in the background, you know. We do have the luxury of being able to plan our military installations a little more sensibly today. 

In any case, in no part of this document is there a definition of the circumstances whereby the AFM can sidestep planning regulations at will. All we are told is that the minister gets to decide, entirely at his own discretion. No guidelines, either. It’s just a blanket right of veto, citing ‘national security’ as an automatic trump card. 

And it’s not the only example of its kind, either. Recently, the government launched a revised national planning strategy… and a rather hurried exercise this turned out to be too, as evidenced by its name: ‘SPED’ (Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development). On closer scrutiny, it is positively replete with almost identical provisos.

Section 3.1, for instance, is entitled ‘National Spatial Framework’. Its main goal is to ‘direct the bulk of development to the Urban Area’… but it ends with the paragraph: “In the case of projects of a national importance, Government may, after balancing economic, social and environmental priorities… conclude that the positive aspects of these projects outweigh the negatives and decide in their favour.”

In other words: “The government reserves the right to simply disregard its own planning laws whenever it feels like it”.

But not to worry, folks! It’s all in the ‘national interest’. And who gets to decide that, I wonder? Oooh, let’s see now… hmmm… you’ll never guess… 

Yes, that’s right. The responsible minister. Who else? And it’s the same blanket ministerial discretion that already waived all planning regulations for the Haywharf concrete monstrosity, on ‘national security’ grounds. 

And according to what guidelines is he or she meant to take this decision? None, of course. Who needs guidelines, when we all know that the entire Cabinet of Ministers was dipped into the Cauldron of Infallibility at birth, and therefore can automatically be trusted to always decide in the best interests of everyone? Even on an island where no two interest groups will ever, ever agree what these ‘best interests’ actually are?

Oh but wait, there’s more. Another part of this document deals specifically with Rural Conservation, and it contains as one of its declared objections:  “to guide development that is either justified to be located in the Rural Area according to government programmes’… “or where alternatives are not possible”.

Here, not only does the government get an automatic right of veto… but it has practically told us from beforehand that it fully intends to occasionally guide development into the rural area, whensoever it takes a fancy to.

And my, what an interesting coincidence. Just when the government announces a development project for a 150,000 square metre swathe of ODZ agricultural land in Marsaskala… out pops a whole new national planning strategy, aimed at facilitating precisely the identification of rural areas for development that is “justified… according to government programmes.”

So take comfort, folks. Now that the floodgates of development have been flung so wide open, the AFM’s Haywharf monstrosity will very soon be the least you’ll be moaning about…