Rational... or what?

Abstract

The latest environmental hot potato appears to be the development rationalisation exercise currently under way. What surprises me is the complete absence of the Church from the current debate - after all, a portion of the land now released for development was formerly Church-owned. Yet another question mark is the need for such a rationalisation process, especially since the available land space within existing schemes should meet the country's needs for the next 20 years. Besides, several recent documents underpin the fact that there is currently an oversupply of properties on the market (3,000 new units every year, compared to the 1,700 needed in reality). One hopes that indeed, as Environment Minister George Pullicino stated in The Times of May 19 ("Revisiting development zones"), the rationalisation process is born out of a genuine intention to give direction to MEPA since the local plan exercise did not address such an issue. One also commends the 33 MPs who have promptly replied to a question posed by MaltaToday -whether they own land that will be included within the new scheme. What about the other 32 MPs? Some official clarification about some allegations which have surfaced should be issued to clear the air once and for all.