Carmel Cacopardo

The current debate on land use planning reform should consider the rights of the residential community. Unfortunately, these rights do not feature at all, neither in the debate nor in the Development Planning Act itself. Yet the residential community is there all the time, absorbing all the collateral damage resulting from all types of development, including over-development as well as the glorified abusive and illegal development.

It is an uphill battle all the time for the residential community and the environmental NGOs acting in its support, to track down and seek ways to address the development which impacts the daily life of the resident. It will now be made more difficult than it already is. A clear objective of the reform is about sidelining the residential community and its views on the proposed development by making it more difficult to present submissions for the consideration of the Planning Authority.

The land use planning reform debate is focused on enhancing the rights of the developers as well as on specific proposals absolving those who acted with impunity over the years. The amnesty for land use planning abuse originally introduced in 2016 is now being fine-tuned and extended outside the development zone (ODZ).

One of the issues avoided over the years is that related to solar rights.

Solar rights, are land use planning rights which so far are not recognized by the Development Planning Act. They are continuously ignored, yet they are still there even if being trampled upon. Government prefers granting rights to those who have acted illegally. However, it then refrains from protecting those who have contributed to the country’s generation of renewable energy. Those who helped in achieving international commitments to counter the impacts of climate change are continuously ignored. Solar rights need protection through being recognised in the Development Planning Act.

Height relaxation, whenever this is implemented, impacts the solar rights of our residential communities. Households impacted by newly created shadows resulting from new developments have to seek alternatives for their already installed solar water heaters as well as their domestic photovoltaic panels.

The utilisation of the sun’s energy is dependent on what gets in the way of the sun’s rays when we need them!  When most of the Local Plans were approved way back in summer of 2006, the permissible heights of building development in a multitude of development zones were substantially increased. At times this increase was from 2 to 5 floors, including a penthouse level.

The impact of this change is increasing in severity with time as the complete or partial redevelopment of properties is being gradually taken in hand. This is resulting in the shadowing of an ever-increasing number of residential units in a number of residential areas.

As a result, solar water heaters and photovoltaic panels installed on a number of residential roofs in the past years, are now in the shade for a considerable amount of time and consequently a number of them are now practically useless. Investments made by a number of our families have been sacrificed on the altar of greed camouflaged as development. Subsidies, (including those originating from EU funds) utilised to assist the tapping of solar energy in a number of cases have thus been thrown down the drain.

This is an area of land use planning which has been ignored over the years. It is still ignored in the proposals which government has currently submitted for public consultation. One Cabinet Minister encourages the use of renewable energy. Another does his best to obstruct it by ensuring that solar rights are ignored. Cabinet as a whole, on the other hand, prefers the protection of illegal development through the three draft legal notices published for consultation.

The proposals put forward by government to address development illegalities in this so-called reform, once more signify, that, in Malta, environmental crime pays. Let that sink in. This is one of the primary objectives of this mid-summer circus.

Solar rights must be protected by the Development Planning Act: they should no longer be at the mercy of unbridled development and an insensitive land use planning process. The increase in permissible building heights introduced when the 2006 lot of local plans was approved had a heavy price-tag in renewable energy sacrificed. We are still paying this price and it will be quite some time before we can recover from this irresponsible impact.  

It seems no lessons have been learnt. We may have more of the same as the reform anticipates more increases in building heights. Hence more shadowing and less solar energy.

Carmel Cacopardo – ADPD-The Green Party Deputy Chairperson

first published in The Malta Independent on Sunday: 17 August 2025