Human holding pens and bête noir or hero?

"It is now terribly chic to show how well off you are by living in close proximity with hundreds of people above and below and at each side of you in a concrete monster"

It would be funny if it were not, well crazy springs to mind.

While the EU is making waves to protect battery hens from being cooped up, nothing is being done for the well being of human beings.

We are building battery cages, in prime sites for the rich and even more cramped ones elsewhere for the not so rich, to the detriment of the rest of the population and nobody except a handful of people seem to give a damn.

The latter is where I agree with Franco Debono, i.e., that nobody except a handful gives a damn. He of course was not referring to building regulations, but more on him later.

Whereas wealth was previously demonstrated through detached villas with gardens, now it is terribly chic to show how well off you are by living in close proximity with hundreds of people above and below and to each side of you in a concrete monster.

Who on earth, in their right mind, would want to spend over the odds to live like a battery hen? Some of the prime site apartments might not be as cramped as a battery cage and some may have a spectacular view, but the overall buildings certainly look like human holding pens.

They are not even architecturally pleasing. They are horrendous to look at. Some of the Tignè flats might have a stupendous view of Valletta, but the opposite view from the city, which incidentally is what I grew up with, has been disastrously marred.

Ah, Valletta, a Unesco World Heritage Site, how you are being undermined with your toothless welcoming grin.

The latest wart to be doing the rounds on the Internet and surfaced in the news yesterday was an addition to the law courts building to make room for judges’ chambers.

A photograph shows the fresh ‘boil’ at its distasteful best. The project, commissioned by the government, which is said to cost €1.8 million, involves a building in Old Bakery Street, Valletta; it joins two adjacent old buildings and raises it to eight floors.

According to The Times, it had been recommended for refusal by the planning directorate when the first application was filed in 2001. The permit was approved by the commission in June 2007, overturning the directorate’s recommendation.

Now because of the current hoo-ha it is to be inspected by planning authority enforcement officers to ensure permit conditions are respected.

We are being taken for a roller coaster ride and I for one am not enjoying it. There are no planning policies setting a height limitation for buildings in Valletta, according to a planning authority spokesman.

But let’s get back to the concrete monsters marring the skyline between Sliema and Valletta. Over and above the aesthetic considerations, can you imagine climbing up all those stairs, with your shopping, a pushchair and a couple of toddlers, if the lift breaks down?

More importantly, at the risk of being labelled a Cassandra, what fire emergency plans are in place? Does Mepa (Malta Environment & Planning Authority) consider this vital safety measure in its deliberations?

I don’t know what kind of management agreements the new buildings, housing hundreds of people, have. But my experience of living in a block, of only four flats, is that even getting to agree on a new intercom system is proving difficult.

All you need is one defaulter for the building’s maintenance to come to a standstill and then the slow progression to a bourgeois slum.

Now Mepa on Thursday approved the building of three more blocks, two rising to 14 storeys, comprising a further 102 apartments, as well as shops and offices at Tignè North, despite all the objections raised by environmental NGOs.

The latter claimed that according to the 1992 local plan Sliema was already over-congested then and had warned against the building of more apartment blocks. Well wasn’t it a grand idea to have local plans! I wonder how much they had cost us (taxpayers) only to be ignored.

This is yet another reason to be wary of any promises made by politicians, especially now.

Now for the man who is alternatively the bête noir or hero of the hour. I cannot make my mind up about the guy. On the one hand I agree with all the reforms he says we need and the fact that the government has been slow, to say the least, to action them.

But, I sometimes think he needs a consultant to advise him on “What not to do”, a sort of alternative to the UK’s Trinny and Suzanna. There is no doubt that the government needed a good shake up, but it should have come as no surprise that the PN, as the current administration, would react as it did.

Debono’s lack of political experience has lead to his head to head confrontation with the PN grandees, who are much more skilful in the art of political intrigue. Did he really not foresee the amount of flax he was bound to get?

Two of a politician’s vital survival skills are a thick hide and avoidance of public self-pity. However, one must admit that his detractors, not the ones behind the scenes, are not doing so well either.

So he wants to be Prime Minister. It is after all every politician’s ultimate ambition, whether they talk about it or not. So he is contradicting what he wrote in his thesis. That is perfectly understandable. We all know that theory and practice don’t always match up.

Surely, some are not saying that one should never veer from what one has thought in the past. That would mean never admitting to one’s errors of judgement and would stifle new and progressive ideas, or maybe that is what some want.

Published in the Malta Independent on Sunday 22/01/2012