Oh dear. I came across it. Pages 53 and 55 of The Executive Business journal, issue 51.

An article by Michael Falzon president of the Malta Developers Association.

The demolition of units that are not worth preserving – mostly those without damp proofing and with bad planning that defies improvement – should be allowed without any hassles. Conservation efforts should be directed at retaining existing facades and where this is not practical the re-utilization of the old masonry in the ‘new’ facades should be acceptable.

What is an acceptable layout? Who is going to decide on this?

Are we to move construction jiggers and trucks and all else to the village cores to satisfy some developers who purchased property there? Retaining facades not practical. In what sense? That it is too costly for the developer to retain? Or not accessible?

The reform in MEPA policies announced by the new administration should tackle these issues without delay.

Yes…this is it. I was wondering why they were so hush-hush about all this.

The new administration – the desecration of our old village cores and the rest of our architectural heritage. It wasn’t enough that the developers ruined Malta’s landscape with concrete pigeon holes everywhere.

Old properties can be done up. It just takes sensitive interventions carried out by specialized people and architects specialized in conservation/restoration, rather than some “know it all” architects who think that every stone is the same as any other.

This is not some cheap rhetoric of past nationalist administrations. This statement is in an advert that MEPA has put out in the media. The consultation logo says: REVISION OF LOCAL PLANS.

Yet Michael Farrugia said that government will do away with local plans.

Local plans or no local plans? That is the question.

The problem is that is that we all will be suffering the consequences, along with future generations.

As a Maltese who does not live in Malta, I have been thinking of investing in property there, that is renovating an old town house or similar – but definitely no new construction. This new “development” made me change my mind.

Poor Malta, already over-constructed, its quaint houses of character replaced by box-like flats…the island has been losing its beauty for years. Environmentalists who supported Moviment Labour owe us an apology.

The rowdmepp never included a timeframe for the ‘radical reform’ envisaged for MEPA.

No one whimpered when they said the ‘environmental’ arm was to be divorced from ‘planning’. Whatever those mean to them.

It’s not as if they’ve ever mentioned a coordinated infrastructure either, resorting to vague promises of ‘development opportunities’, car parks, everywhere.

Traffic management, planning and any resulting economic progress is a science, not electoral propaganda. It will be his greatest failure. The fact he relies on individuals whose only knowhow is property speculation will see to that.

When Pullicino piloted the anti-fragmentation scheme it remained on the shelf, not one of our so-called ‘entrepreneurs’ saw a strategic long term potential. Muscat’s idea then, is to sate this short-term convolution leading to a snatch and grab business plan. Oh, the corrupt practices to save one’s company.

Infrastructure as a means to reduce mass and increase physical efficiency is an unknown concept. FAR failed, concrete still a black art.

Just to clarify, the Shard, London’s tallest building, sits astride a major rail junction and doesn’t even have a single parking space attached. That’s how far back in time we are.

It’s access that matters, go tell that to your typical switchers and Labour core. Unbearable given the personal misgivings. Or better, how will Audrey Harrison, who must surely have an idea, match her vote with what has to be done?

How contradictory is it to have a Labour government enslaved in the cheapest of materialistic fundamentals as economic criteria to achieve any public goal? It won’t work.

The banks have been warned, the IMF won’t tolerate any lending directed at Muscat’s primitive idea of kickstarting an economy.

Hot air.

Why aren’t they bringing out their megaphones, organizing protest marches and kissing the leader of the opposition for the cameras?

To add insult to injury, they made it seem that the consultation process under Labour will be much better and more transparent than that carried out in 2006 and before under the Nationalists.

Without consultation, the Parliamentary Secretary announces a radical change in the planning system – the removal of local plans. The decision also renders the Labour’s new style of consultation a farce. What is MEPA going to consult on if government decided at one fell swoop to remove all existing local plans?

There was talk of urban regeneration reverting to extensive restoration and concentrating on fiscal incentives.

No different to what the nationalist administration contemplated and presented in subsequent budgets, until Astrid decided Labour can be up to it as well, so there.

And that was over two years ago, before Labour went down the developers’ garden path.

She just had to play skittles with policy and white papers, no doubt thrilled that Muscat with a goatee gave her a little peck on St.John’s parvis, look where she is now.

The only thing which can save us is the banks maintaining their credit restricted. It’s not as if these will go after Joseph’s new deal.

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

LoveSexy. Hudu go fikom.

“Environmentalists” are not enraged but embarrassed and disconcerted. They are all now insisting that they did not support josephmuscat.com.