2018 is make-or-break for the environment. Hibernation is not an option

The decision to postpone approval of new local plans to after the 2018 general election raises the prospect of an avalanche of private, pre-electoral promises to landowners, followed by a revision in the government’s honeymoon period at the start of Joseph Muscat’s second term in office.

This makes the following scenario likely:

It is the summer of 2018. Labour has just been elected to power by a convincing margin in an election where environmentalists kept a low profile, scared of being labelled PN lackeys. The new draft local plans, based on 7,000 submissions made in 2013, are published in the middle of August as the country is relaxing, recovering from electoral fatigue.

The declared aim of the government is to conclude the process in the first year of the legislature. With the exception of a couple of stubborn journalists busy pin-pointing who benefitted from the latest changes and a few pockets of residents whose property has suddenly lost its views, nobody really cares.

Past injustices are invoked to justify the inclusion of new lands in the development boundaries.

As a sop, some government land along the coast, which already cannot be developed, is removed from development boundaries. A few landowners express their outrage claiming that they have been promised much more before the election.

In the meantime the newly elected Labour government is concluding a major deal with a developer to hand over ODZ land for the development of a hotel and a motor sport circuit (left on the backburner before the election not to upset environmentalists).

But all this can be avoided.

Labour may realise that it may lose votes, if it does not dispel these fears. It may also ignore environmentalists at its own peril if other parties make clear commitments which give them greater legitimacy.

Protestors march in Valletta against the Zonqor university campus

It is clear that after the Zonqor protest which saw thousands taking to the street, the government has decided to put major decisions on the environment on the backburner. Correctly, the government saw in the Zonqor protest the beginning of a movement which could snowball in to something bigger.

The local plan revision process, which commenced immediately after the 2013 general election, was the first casualty. The PA has since then confirmed that its technical work, which had to be completed in 2015, is still unfinished and there is no date for completion.

The government has made it clear that it will not push for another project on ODZ land in this legislature. The only controversial decision taken in the past months was the approval of two high-rise projects, involving the Tumas and Gasan Groups. The most controversial of the two decisions, a 38-storey tower in Sliema, may come at an electoral cost and this realisation may spur the politically appointed Environment Planning and Review Tribunal to overturn the permit on the eve of the election.

Even the Paceville masterplan may been shelved after the first signs of popular disapproval. And government may still be in time to do a “Xaghra l-Hamra U-turn” (the abandonment of a golf course project under the PN before the 2008 election) on Zonqor, but this may clash with commitments already made to Sadeen Group.

Surely enough, the environment is still suffering the brunt of planning policies which led to the mushrooming of agricultural stores and rural dwellings (many approved against the recommendation of the Environment and Resources Authority) and the proliferation of apartment blocks instead of townhouses and gardens in our towns and villages.

But on balance, such low-scale development is more likely to win Labour more votes. Minor developments rarely create any public outrage while Labour is likely to win the allegiance of those benefitting from these new policies, especially those who had previously seen their permits turned down.

An extension of development boundaries or any new deal involving the transfer of government-owned ODZ land is a different matter. For Labour it is makes more sense to make pre-electoral promises to the potential beneficiaries of such schemes without taking any public commitments before the next election. 

To get there environmentalists have to set partisan grudges aside, look at the bigger picture and engage with the political class in what promises to be a make-or-break election for the Maltese environment.

For environmentalists, the task at hand is to make sure that land use is one of the major issues of the next election. The only way to achieve this is to engage in the pragmatic game, played by other successful lobbies like the gay rights movement in the past: namely that of expecting clear and achievable commitments from political parties, candidates and leaders and deny electoral support to those who do not sign up to these commitments.

Commitments should not be a dreamy wish-list but they should be firmer than the PN’s current proposal for a two-thirds majority for major projects in ODZ (with a simple majority in a third vote). In this way, land use – which is Malta’s most pressing environmental problem – will make its way back to the news cycle.

But to get there environmentalists have to set partisan grudges aside, look at the bigger picture and engage with the political class in what promises to be a make-or-break election for the Maltese environment.

Setting the political agenda should be their priority in the next months. Hibernation is not an option.