Environmental Indicators show sharp increase in construction waste

Waste generation in 2010 increased by 48% compared to the previous year, mainly due to a sharp increase in construction waste, a Mepa Environmental Indicators report issued today shows.

The report says that construction and demolition waste had increased after having declined by 70% between 2008 and 2009. Municipal waste declined by 10 percentage point to 17.2% while hazardous waste declined from 4.8% to 2.5%.

Mepa chairman Austin Walker said the increase in construction waste stemmed from a spike in building permits in previous years. He said the amount of waste which was was being recycled had increased from 4% in 2009 to 7.7% in 2010.

The Environmental indicators also show that last year the number of permits issued for housing units declined from a high of 11,000 in 2007 to just 3,995 last year. Malta last year exceeded the EU standards on particulate matter in the air on a number of days, mainly in Msida, one of the areas having the heaviest traffic flows in Malta. However levels of sulphur dioxide and benzine both decreased.

The report's results were announced by Environment Minister Mario de Marco, who said that the replacement of the bus fleet would have a positive effect on air quality, but Malta still had the oldest average car age in the EU at 13.6 years. Malta, he said, needed to encourage car pooling, and he called on local councils to also create traffic free zones, particularly in village cores. The reports says that government spending on the environment had risen by 30% from 2009 to reach €130m.

Electricity generation rose by 2.6% in 2011. Marguerite Camilleri, Unit manager, policy coordinator at Mepa said the area of land designated as special protection area had in 2011 increased by 10.8 square kilometres compared to 2010.

Dr de Marco said such indicators were important in the context of the people's right to access for environmental information, which was reaffirmed in last week's UN conference on sustainable development.

Touching briefly on the importance of maintaining the coastal environment, he said that this was why the government could not say that land reclamation was one of the ways forward. He asked whether there was a massive demand for land which would justify the need for land reclamation, which could devastate coastal habitats?

Source: Times of Malta online June 27, 2012

Code of ethics for Maltese notaries being drawn up

The Notarial Council is in the process of drafting a code of ethics for notaries after recent amendments in the notarial law established the duties of notaries that were never defined by law.
Minister for Fair Competition, Small Business and Consumers Jason Azzopardi earlier today presented warrants to 14 new notaries. He said that the amendments in the law ensure that European notaries who would like to practice in Malta must know how to write and speak Maltese as well as English. He said that in this way, Government safeguarded national interests.

Source: di-ve news

Tougher checks on home loans - "Banks will bear costs"

People taking out home loans will face tougher checks under new plans unveiled by Brussels.

The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee has approved proposals aimed at strengthening both the rights and obligations of consumers on mortgages.

According to these rules, those taking out a home loan will have to be scrutinised more closely to make sure they can repay their loans while banks and financial institutions will have to be clearer on the information they give to clients before lending them money.

The new rules also introduce a new cooling-off concept, where clients will be given a chance to change their mind.

The EU’s mortgage market is valued as €6 trillion or 52 per cent of the EU’s GDP. Malta’s banking sector is highly exposed to the mortgage market, which is estimated to make up the bulk of the island’s local banking business.

The aim of the new rules is to give consumers taking out mortgages greater protection. The main elements include a more efficient assessment of the borrowers’ credit worthiness so that only those who can repay the loan would get one. This will also reduce the banks’ potential losses while imprudent borrowers are spared bankruptcy. For the first time, prospective home owners would be entitled to a 14-day cool-off period so that they can change their mind about taking out a mortgage without giving any reason.

The cost of early repayments and risks of foreign-currency loans should be borne by banks, although the proposals specify that “fair and objectively justified” compensation for lenders must still be available.

The rules are expected to be adopted by the EP’s plenary session before endorsement by member states.

Source: The Times of Malta, June 13, 2012

Malta Property Price Index and Property Volume Index: Q1/2012

In the first quarter, the All-Property Price Index increased by 1.6 per cent. This primarily reflected a rise of 1.7 per cent in the apartments index, compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The maisonettes index went up by 6.0 per cent.

The All-Transactions Volume Index showed that the number of transactions in the first quarter of 2012 decreased by 6.7 per cent when compared to the corresponding period last year.

Read the full document published by the NSO (National Statistics Office - Malta) June 1, 2012, here.
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Malta plans for property value index

Family Minister Chris Said has set up a working group to propose a framework for a Market Property Value Index. This “transparent” mechanism would act as the national baseline to determine a fair market sale or rental value for any type of property in any particular area in Malta.

The working group will be made up of representatives from the Chamber of Architects, the College of Notaries, the GRTU, the Real Estate Association, the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise and government entities. Dr Said made the announcement during a conference on Property Valuation Standards organised by the Chamber of Architects earlier this week.
“I am confident that salient work will be carried out in this regard and I look forward to the recommendations that will be presented,” he said.

He said discussions with banks and real estate agencies showed the increasing popularity of renting. But since the rental market was still in its infancy there was very little market intelligence for investors, financial institutions and ordinary people to determine a fair market value for a residential or commercial entity in a parti-cular locality.
Dr Said began his speech by explaining how the state’s “interventionist” policies by successive post-war administrations were always meant to be temporary.

But the ongoing permanency of these measures resulted in the “institutionalised misuse” of these social measures originally undertaken in extreme circumstances. “The right of a tenant to live in a rented property cannot be absolute or indefinite and it is the state’s obligation to alleviate impacts that arise from reasonable market conditions,” he said, recalling the government’s rent reform undertaken at the beginning of the legislature.

Source: The Times of Malta June 1, 2012