More construction developments exempted from traffic studies

Parliamentary secretary for planning Michael Falzon has announced a major overhaul of the system used to assess the impact of major developments, by exempting a number of developments from traffic impact studies.

“It is useless to conduct studies when empirical data shows that these are useless and only serve to increase the expenditure for those asked to conduct these studies,” Falzon said.

At present any residential block of over 50 apartments, office blocks of over 1,000 square metres, any hospital with over 50 beds, theatres of over 100 seats and hotels of over 100 beds require impact assessment on whether the traffic they create is sustainable or not.

The requirements have now been reduced: only residential blocks of over 75 units, office blocks over 2,000 square metres, health facilities over 2,500 square metres, theatres of over 200 seats and any hotel with over 200 beds will require a traffic impact assessment, the new instrument that replaces the TIS.

Supermarkets are the only exception to the rule exempting more developments from transport studies, whose threshold was actually changed from 1,000 to 500 square metres for a TIA. Since most new supermarkets are over 1,000 square meters, this rule will have a limited impact.  Surprisingly the threshold was raised for retail, non-food shops. Presently any shopping mall over 1,000 square metres requires a TIS; now only malls greater than 2,000 square metres will require such studies.

As today any project generating more than 100 movements during peak hours will still require traffic studies.

One drastic change regards warehouses. Presently all warehouses over 1,000 square metres requires a traffic study; now only those over 8,000 square metres will require one. This is justified because these developments were found to create a slight impact on traffic.

Falzon has justified the changes as a way to reduce bureaucracy while transport expert Lucienne Stafrace said that if the new rules were already in place, out of the 121 studies held between 2010 and 2014, 41 would not have been required.  Stafrace concluded that out of these 41 studies problems were only identified in 4 cases.

When asked by MaltaToday how this reform will worsen the traffic impact of cumulative developments – in the sense that various residential apartment blocks falling under the 75-unit threshold could be constructed within the same area – MEPA chief executive Johann Buttigieg insisted that this problem should be assessed at local plan level.

He said that unlike in 2006, these problems will be considered in the Strategic Environment Assessment on the new local plans. “If problems were created by the 2006 local plans we cannot solve them now by removing any right acquired by developers.”

Buttigieg did not rule out that Transport Impact Assessments are issued for public consultation in the same way as Environment Impact Assessment.  Presently TIS documents can be assessed in the file of each application but are not issued for public consultation.

Buttigieg also referred to the fact that developments that do not surpass the threshold located in problematic areas like major junctions may still be asked to conduct a simplified traffic impact study.

One of the aims of the new system is that reports will not only assess the traffic impact but will also propose measures to mitigate the impact of new developments.