Concrete overreach

The Environment Ministry has presented its legislative proposals for construction outside designated zoning areas to the cabinet. Although the text of the draft law has not been disclosed, there is a prevailing impression that it aims to facilitate off-plan building activity. The ministry justifies this move by highlighting the predicament of property owners who, having acquired properties outside town zoning plans, find themselves unable to exploit them due to a Council of State decision prohibiting construction on plots lacking frontage on a recognized communal road.

My initial engagement with politics occurred at the Housing Directorate of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (which was succeeded by the Ministry of Environment), from 1977 to 1980. If there's one lesson I gleaned from that experience, it's that the significance and consequences of urban planning...