Design & Build 02 | Page 15

Design Sandro Chetcuti from the President a Better Future Malta Developers Association President Sandro Chetcuti argues on the importance of long-term planning, the need for better co-ordination between government entities and the urgent need to update legislation that will make imple- mentation of planning policies more equitable and effective. M alta has seen its fair share of planning over the years. In the early eighties, gov- ernment enacted the Building Devel- opments Areas (BDA) Act. This had to give way to the Temporary Provision Schemes, followed by the Structure DESIGN&BUILD Plan way back in the Nineties and rel- evant Local plans. More recently we have had the Strategic Plan for Envi- ronment and Development (SPED). We have to avoid the negative experi- ences of the past, when we tackled is- sues haphazardly and only when they suddenly crop up. We need to es- tablish our final aim before we start heading in any particular direction. We also need some clear thinking to incorporate elements in our plan- ning system, which are perhaps un- thinkable from a budget perspective, but ones we cannot do without. Q1, 2017 13