Protecting green spaces
A court recently confirmed a verdict by the Administrative Review Tribunal that had annulled a decision by the Lands Authority to take back part of a garden that was leased to the Gżira local council.
Here, the Authority had wanted to take back 902 square metres of land from the Council of Europe public garden, which would have been used for the relocation of a fuel station. The petrol station is currently located near the Manoel Island bridge.
Gżira is a heavily developed area, and the council had itself argued that this garden the only green open space in the locality.
While the Lands Authority had wanted to take a slice of this garden, the government has constantly been talking about urban green open spaces, and the creation of more of them. The government had even pledged €700 million for such projects, and set up Project Green to oversee it.
So on one hand the government wants to be seen as making a push for more green space in localities… yet on the other hand tries to reduce such a space…
The council did right to fight to preserve the garden.
An article that appeared on MaltaToday has now read that the Lands Authority said that the removal of Gżira’s fuel station next to the Manoel Island bridge will still be required “for road infrastructure purposes,” but added that discussions on possible “alternatives” on relocation are ongoing.
If the government is going to speak about the importance of green public spaces within the community, then it should not try and eat up such spaces that already exist.
As for the station, if it has to be moved, it should probably be relocated somewhere a bit further away from houses for safety reasons, but kept at the same size, perhaps in an industrial area.
But back on point. Malta needs more urban green spaces. Aside from providing a space where one can go and spend some time with family, or just sit down and enjoy looking at some greenery, rather than drab greys, such spaces also offer an important escape for people to destress.
As things stand today, government after government focused too much on allowing buildings to rise and increase in number without paying any attention to the impacts that this could have. Some localities have very limited open spaces. Others suffer from heavy traffic issues because of lack of planning.
The €700 million mentioned earlier is a good initiative, but we need to see more commitment by the government to protect existing spaces and guarantee the protection of ODZ areas. The recent Legal Notice regarding the extension of the regularization scheme enabling pre-2016 properties, with a site perimeter that extends partially outside of the development boundaries but are still covered by a permit to be regularized, is also something that raises concern and brings the government’s aim to protect the environment into question.
DLH Executive President Alex Torpiano told The Malta Independent that there is no indication of what the word ‘partially’ means, describing the Legal Notice as very vague. “There are people who have gone beyond the law, built illegally, and now they’re being given an OK for it,” he said.