The draft law to strengthen digitization in the urban land use planning process

Briefing

In the 2021 coalition agreement, the Federal Government decided to speed up planning and approval procedures for construction projects. On 14 December 2022, the Federal Cabinet adopted a bill to strengthen digitalisation in the process setting up planning law – including zoning plans as well as development plans. The preparation of zoning plans is an essential planning step for the creation of building law and the approval of building projects. The Bill proposes changes to the procedures for the preparation of planning law. According to the draft from the federal government, participation in the zoning plan procedure will be conducted digitally and the deadlines for approval of certain development plans will be shortened; the legislative process on this has not yet been completed.

Key elements of the draft

Digital planning procedure – Currently, draft plans have to be submitted in paper form and inspected on site at the competent authority (Sec. 3 para. 2 of the Building Code). However, the Act provides for the public in particular to have digital access to the documents of a planning committee procedure. This is intended to remove significant barriers by allowing documents to be inspected from home and statements on the zoning plan to be submitted digitally.

No (purely) formal repetitions – If zoning plans are amended in the course of the procedure, they regularly have to be submitted in full a second time to the competent building authority – therefore the authorities and the public involved could again bring forward statements on the entire zoning plan (Sec. 4a para. 3 sentence 2 of the Building Code). The competent authority could make exceptions and only present the amended sections of the development plan. However, the normal case was the complete repetition of the planning procedure. In order to make the procedure more efficient, this repetition will be abolished and only the amended part of the plan will have to be submitted.

Shorter approval periods – At present, the competent authority has to decide on the approval of a land use plan within three months (Sec. 6 para. 4 of the Building Code). These three months are to be reduced to one month. Again, the express aim is to speed up the procedure.

Do you have any questions about speeding up your approval procedures and/or building or environmental law, etc.? We look forward to hearing from you.