NGOs' reaction to the proposed planning bills is a symptom of the breakdown in trust between the various industry stakeholders, the President of the Kamra tal-Periti warned on Saturday.
"We must all make an effort to rebuild that trust through genuine dialogue and a willingness to find common ground. We urge all parties... to replace antagonism with dialogue, and confrontation with constructive engagement," Andre Pizzuto told the Premju Emanuele Luigi Galizia Award Ceremony at Villa Bighi.
Two controversial bills for reform of the planning process are currently before parliament, but they have been widely criticised as opening the door to destructive development.
On Saturday, Pizzuto said that the public debate on planning reform had "regrettably" become narrowly legalistic.
He lamented that the debate was now framed around what constitutes a good legal outcome for applicants or objectors, rather than what constitutes a good architectural outcome for our communities.
"As a Kamra, we must state this clearly: good planning is not done through the submission of planning applications, and environmental protection is not achieved through the filing of objections.
"These are administrative acts, not instruments of vision. If we continue to conflate them with the true objectives of planning, we will remain trapped in a cycle of mediocrity and mistrust. Both sides of the debate must understand that if we continue to reduce our national planning conversation to this level, we will never achieve a built environment that is truly worthy of our aspirations."
Pizzuto said it was his duty, as the chamber's president, to steer the debate back to where it belonged: the quality of architecture and the enhancement of the built environment.
"The frustration and disillusionment we are witnessing across the country are not simply reactions to policy -- they are expressions of a deep yearning for a better, more thoughtful approach to how we shape our surroundings.
"If we fail to respond to these sentiments, we risk perpetuating mistrust and disengagement."
In his address, Pizzuto referred to the Premju Galizia 2025 shortlisted entrants, who on Friday presented their submissions to the jury and the public.
Pizzuto expressed concern over a common theme in the participants' presentations: "It wasn't technical obstacles or engineering challenges that sapped energy from these projects".
"The real challenge, the one that consistently undermined design integrity, was the planning approval process."
He said promising concepts were slowly diluted, reshaped, and hollowed out by the time they reached approval: their original ethos was diminished by compromise and bureaucratic caution.
But it was not just the system that threatened design quality, Pizzuto said. Clients faced with the risk of a planning refusal also got cold feet.
"This has created a dynamic where clients seek out periti who are known to 'get permits', rather than those who create good architecture.
"And this dynamic is dangerous. It rewards expediency over excellence, compliance over creativity, and undermines the very idea of architectural legacy," he told those at the awards ceremony themed Legacy.
Legacy, Pizzuto said earlier, was not only what one inherited but also what they left behind.
"The architecture we design today becomes the physical manifestation of our collective values and ambitions. It will tell future generations who we were - what we cared about, and how deeply we believed in quality, place, and purpose.
"Our legacy will not only be written in policy or regulation, but in the walls, streets, and spaces that define our daily lives."
Pizzuto also directly addressed political and industry leaders, urging them to direct the development model toward one that was responsive to public sentiment and grounded in responsibility.
He urged them to move away from a planning system driven by speculative development that extracted value from land, heritage and communities to one that valued sustainable development, which enhanced what already existed and created a lasting legacy in the process.
One of the key ways to achieve this, he said, was through the creation of a national architecture policy.
Such a policy would recognise the social, cultural, and economic importance of architecture and embed design quality at the heart of the national agenda.
Among others, the chamber is suggesting design review panels consisting of architects tasked with assessing projects on their architectural merit, independently of planning policy.
Such panels would allow architects to present their work while discussing concept development, materiality, context, and community benefit.
The public would also be invited to participate in this process, breaking down barriers between applicant and objector, and fostering a participatory approach to how our towns and villages evolve.
At the end of this process, the panel would issue a recommendation that could accompany the planning application, allowing the architectural discussion to close, and the planning evaluation to focus only on objective, quantitative criteria such as land use and environmental impact.
Pizzuto said that the Kamra tal-Periti and the Planning Authority were at an advanced stage in reaching an agreement to begin developing Malta's first such policy.
Addressing the same ceremony, PA's executive chair Johann Buttigieg also referred to collaboration on the policy, which he said was a "forward-thinking framework designed to guide future development and ensure adherence to the highest standards of sustainable and contextually appropriate design across Malta".
Among others, this comprehensive policy included a detailed review of architectural practices and education in Malta and public procurement of architectural services, he said.
It would also integrate European policies - including the New European Bauhaus initiative - and develop an architectural framework aligned with globally recognised principles, he said.