Viewpoints

Why are Outside Development Zone (ODZ) permits granted if the same term implies that no development is allowed within these zones? Strictly speaking, an area which is ODZ can only be developed if the development boundary is moved in order to include that area within the limits of development which requires the consent of Parliament. This process does not apply only in...

11th September 2014 The government has approved new building heights for hotels stating that this measure can solve the issue of their economic viability and improve the quality of Malta’s offer. At the same time, there are schemes in the offing that will develop the whole of Malta’s eastern shores from St George’s Bay, past White Rocks to Salina, so that the...

The name ‘Dubai’ is associated with more than just another city state. The word is linked in the collective imagination with shopping malls, ostentatious wealth, and the large-scale consumption of luxury goods and entertainment including extravaganzas like ski slopes of snow in the hot desert. People associate Dubai’s landscape with high-rise ‘iconic’ buildings, ambitious land reclamation projects, gated luxury residential areas,...

2nd July 2014 The period for the public to submit comments to Government for the Strategic Plan for Environment and Development closed on June 20.  The document called SPED, the new Structure Plan for Malta for the next decade, was available on Mepa’s website for all to study, together with an assessment of its environmental impacts.   Government ministries, interested institutions, local...

Referring to the recent case of the pseudo-Gothic historic house in Spinola, at 127, Spinola Road, Spinola, Times of Malta requested Din l-Art Ħelwa to comment on the current issue. One may argue that there may be insufficient fiscal incentives in place to restore such a scheduled building. I would like to argue that this is...

Din l-Art Ħelwa and citizens who value the environment and Malta’s natural heritage are indeed grateful to The Sunday Times of Malta for enticing Environment Minister Leo Brincat to declare that he will champion the environment when Mepa is split up. Astoundingly, in the interview he revealed that “he had not been consulted on plans to revise the out of development...