Correlation of Private and Public Interests in Land Law: Continuation of the Optimal Combination Search

Abstract

The article on the base of approach to history, analysis of Russia’s laws and judicial practice explores a complicated legal and political issue about seeking an optimal balance between private and public interests in the sphere of land relations. The issue is most directly visible within the boundaries of the settlements, where the norms of the land, civil and town-planning law enter into a dynamic interaction. Its essence is in the necessity of securing the balance of a private owner interests (construction of a dwelling house or another real estate object) with the interests of the city’s inhabitants (public interest), consisting in providing them with a comfortable and safe residence, work and rest. No less difficulty the search of balance between private and public interests acquires in the event if private interests in use of a one natural resource overlap the public use of the other natural resource, located in that terrain. A classic example of this is the conflict of interests between private owners of land parcels and of an indeterminate number of citizens engaged in hunting within limits of such land parcels or on the adjacent territories. The article argues that this problem is equally intrinsic to the Russian Federation, countries of the former Socialist camp as well as the developed European countries.The authors prove that in the sphere of land relations the law norms provide for a much wider range of public and private methods of legal regulation, than in the other branches of law. At the same time, an important particularity of land relations is the variety of forms and methods of finding a compromise between private and public interests in use of land parcels, the impact on content of rights and duties of the land parcels’ owners of town-planning requirements, specified in the building regulations (zoning) of the municipality.