The Planning Authority is processing considerably fewer applications each year when compared to a decade ago but it is granting approval to more.
An analysis of permit decisions between 2005 and 2020 shows the number of requested permits increasing from 8,964 in 2005, increasing to a high of 9,658 in 2010. The number has been falling steadily since and, with the exception of 2016, has hovered around the 6,500 from 2013 onwards.
But while the number of submitted applications is on the decline, the number of permits approved has remained more or less at 2005-2010 levels.
A look at the distribution of permit decisions also indicates that in 2005 the proportion of permits refused was 19% – roughly one in five – while granted permits made up 60%, with the rest being ‘other decisions’ – basically anything that wasn’t a yes or a no.
By 2020, approved permits had reached 79%, while refused permits had fallen to 7%.
As for the other decisions, they made up the highest proportion of decisions in 2011 – 54% – before falling sharply from 37% to 18% between 2015 and 2016.
While it is difficult to estimate the ratio of permits submitted for full-blown developments to those submitted for minor works, the data illustrates how the construction industry was, at least in part, slowed down as a result of increased planning bureaucracy between 2010 and 2015.
This was likely the result of government policy prior to 2013, and the subsequent demerger of MEPA which came into force in 2016.
The fact that since 2017 decisions have been less varied suggests that the authority has become more streamlined in its operations and that the industry has become grown more accustomed to the system. After all, the Planning Authority has only been around since the mid-90s.
Case officer decision altered one in five times
The way the planning process works is that once an application is received by the authority it is validated and in order to ensure that it complies with the minimum submission requirements for applications.
Once this happens, the case is given a case number and it is assigned to a case officer, who must assess the application strictly on the basis of the authority’s policies and regulations, aided by at times obscure and unpublished guidelines.
This is just a recommendation, however, as the application then moves on to the planning commission or the planning board, depending on the application, for a final decision.
After the case officer’s evaluation, the applicant is given the opportunity to make changes before a final decision is taken by the commission or the board.
They might also choose to argue their case, especially if deviating from the policy would result in a better outcome.
For example, the policy for a particular area might prohibit a certain feature but at the same time, that feature may be present in all other buildings in that road. Such material considerations can at times overrule the policy in place and a case for this can be argued before the commission or board.
A look at the data for 2020 shows that in roughly one in five cases, the decision handed down by the board is different from that recommended by the case officer.
This occurs far more often with applications case officers have recommended for refusal than it does with those applications recommended for approval.
In fact, 71% of cases where the case officer recommended refusal were eventually granted a permit by the board. On the other hand, only 1% of recommendations to grant were changed to a refusal.
This is partly explained by the fact that, at the end of the day, one expects the policies in place to be directly applicable and able to reach a satisfactory outcome based on their direct application, so if a permit has been deemed to conform with those same policies, there technically should be little reason to change that.
But while the board is right to listen to an architect’s arguments in favour of an application’s approval, it is unclear to what extent the board proactively reconsiders applications recommended for approval.
The large difference in the final outcome in cases where a case officer has recommended refusal and those in which approval was recommended suggests that while planning authority has the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that no permit is wrongfully denied, similar safeguards to ensure the opposite doesn’t happen.
The data suggests that while Malta’s planning system is able to reconsider an application that goes against policy but which is considered not to be determinental to its surroundings, it is powerless to stop buildings frombeing constructed, which, while in conformity with policy, have been judged to have a negative impact on the area in which it is located.
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