Mangion Mangion & Partners, Malta Architects, Civil Engineers and Planning Consultants

The need for Locality Plans has to be supplemented by the appointment of City Managers. Perit Vincent Magri identifies what the role of such an important local position would be and the change that it would bring about.

As the needs and trends dictate, so the administrative machine has to respond accordingly. Over the last decade we have seen the responsibility of Local Councils in relation to the upkeep and presentation of the respective localities increase substantially. Many are those Local Councils that seem to want to give a unique, individual perspective to their locality. This is mostly done both through the exposition of the local culture as it differs from the rest of the Islands, and also through the implementation of physical projects that aim to make the locality an attractive place to live in and to visit.

Unfortunately, not all Local Councils have real plans for their locality. Those few that do have, might not have the necessary funds to implement their plans. Hence, in most cases, they have to lobby with Central Authorities either for these funds or else for the approval of these projects to be carried out by the Central Authorities themselves. This leads to one large problem, very common in Malta - lack of coordination.

The first and important aspect of this coordination was highlighted in a previous article regarding the need for Locality Plans, with the aim of providing a sound basis for the implementation of projects in each locality. The second aspect is the appointment of City Managers. These ideas are tried and tested, and continue to evolve in the USA and Europe. They are ideas that work, and apart from the power mongering that we are used to here, there is no real reason why they should not work in Malta and Gozo.
Historically, the concept of the City Manager originated in the USA, and the idea was to place the "management" of the city into the hands of a non-elected outside expert answerable to the elected members of the Council. This would usually be an experienced business manager, project manager, engineer or urban planner, with the hope that the city manager would remain neutral to city politics.
Obviously, this idea needs to be adapted to Malta, some of the roles may change, or more focus would need to be given to specific roles. The idea is to have a technical person in each local council through whom planning, project management and implementation are coordinated. Typical roles and responsibilities of our city manager could include the commissioning of technical plans, such as Locality Plans, the coordination of project day-to-day operations, the preparation of a draft city budget each year which includes options for the Council to vote on; researching and making recommendations about topics of interest to the Council; organisation of Public Consultation meetings, providing executive leadership that encourages good performance, and in general ensuring that the city operates in a professional way to render the best effect.


This person would, in our case, be the technical complement to the administrative role of the Local Council Secretary and hence needs to be a technical person with good management skills. We cannot continue to implement projects in isolation. One very typical example is the way street furniture of different types and totally uncomplementary to each other are commonly placed in the same street or garden. This also applies to street paving……and to a host of other things. Another example is the holistic project management, in terms of time frames and deadlines, in terms of impact on residents and commercial establishments, and in terms of transportation networks and the impact on the motorist. An effective City Manager would definitely save more money for the Council than his salary would entail, in terms of better planning, time lost, and efficiency in service provision to the community.

The real question is whether we want to really improve the system in Malta or whether we want to continue along this route of amateurism and petty party politics. We have to understand that we are all in the same boat here, and we are answerable to the next generations through our actions of today. But, do we really care?

Perit Vincent Magri is specialized in Land Use Planning, having graduated from the University of Malta and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He has worked in Planning since 1988, both as part of the Planning Directorate in the early days of Planning in Malta and in the Private sector. He currently forms part of the team at Mangion, Mangion and Partners (Architects, Civil Engineers and Planning Consultants) - and can be contacted on vmagri@mmp.com.mt or 21336704.