Territorial planning systems need an essential reorganization

“In territorial planning a lot of attention is given not to the rapid and quality drafting of documentation, but to complicated and not always necessary procedures. Therefore all the territorial planning process drags on, conditions for corruption are created, and investments are impeded,“ says the Auditor General Giedrė Švedienė commenting on results of audit, which evaluated the efficiency of territorial planning system. “We recommended a lot of measures for the competent institutions as to how and in which direction all the territorial planning system may be reorganized.“

In the opinion of the NAOL, in order to achieve a sustainable territorial development, at first a higher level territorial plans have to be approved. Currently seven counties lag behind in drafting general territorial plans, 49 municipalities have already drawn up general and special plans. Legislation does not stipulate as to which extent the special plan has to be integrated into the general plan, therefore it raises the issue of their inter-compatibility.

Territorial development and investments are set back by the protracted reconciliation procedures of different level plans. Furthermore, the NAOL have noted that the Government have not taken a decision on who will finish the reconciliation and will submit for approval the general plans of counties, which have not yet finished the territorial planning when County Governors‘ Administrations will be dissolved later in the year.

The NAOL notes that having reorganized the territorial planning system, some 80 per cent of drafting of all the detailed plans may be waived: there would be no need for detailed plans when determining the boundaries of a land lot, preparing to build a building and when general, special and town detailed plan is sufficiently comprehensive and includes all the required parameters. There would be no need either for detailed plans when seeking to change the purpose of the land use: having approved general plans of municipalities, multifunctional, instead of the current single functional purpose of the land would have to be set.

The NAOL detected that most of counties and municipalities do not submit the updated territorial planning documentation to the Environmental Protection Agency; managers of registers use different information systems, therefore there are no possibilities to develop a common system integrating all the registers and databases of territorial planning documentation. For example, in 2007-2009 the Agency did not receive any documentation from 22 municipalities and 6 counties. Therefore the planning documentation remains not coordinated, and institutions performing public supervision are not able to monitor all the territorial planning process, which increases the risk of corruption.

The NAOL recommended to the Ministry of Environment, which drafts new edition of the Law on Territorial Planning, to establish a clear hierarchy of planning documentation and their reconciliation levels, as well as to expand the list of cases when drafting of the detailed plan is not necessary, and to ensure the development of constantly updated common system of territorial planning documentation registers and databases, as well as to ensure implementation of other recommendations given in the audit report.



Public audit report is available in Lithuanian:
Territorial Planning and Its Organization