Formation and development of sources of legal regulation of urban planning activities in Austria and Austria-Hungary (second half of the 18th – beginning of the 20th century)

Abstract

The article analyzes the formation and development of sources of legal regulation of urban development in Austria and Austria-Hungary (second half of the 18th - beginning of the 20th century). It is noted that only 12 years after the annexation of Galicia, the Austrian government began to carefully classify settlements. The need for such a classification was determined by the need to add an index to a detailed map of the country. The division of settlements into cities/towns/villages was to be carried out by the circular offices themselves as a result of the order of the court decree dated October 28, 1784. In the new governor’s order on this matter dated December 13, 1784, it was noted at the very beginning that the circular offices, despite clear instructions governorates, qualified settlements as cities, towns and villages only on the basis of their location, size, number of inhabitants, buildings, and therefore not on the basis of proper attributes. The province also ordered that a city (Stadt) should be considered a settlement that has the privilege of being a city. When settlements did not have this privilege, they were to be considered villages (Dörfer). The classification of settlements was to be based solely on their privileges and no other considerations could be taken into account; therefore, only the historical criterion was applied, and as a result, all the privileges from Polish times were accepted in those clauses of their provisions that recognized the settlement as a city or town.
 It has been established that the legal regulation of town planning activities in Austria in the XVIII–XIX centuries. was based mainly on legislative acts of various nature. The general rules of construction were determined by the Civil Code of 1811, the Law on City Rights, the Laws on Construction of 1829 and 1868, separate construction statutes for Galician cities/towns, adopted in the second half of the 19th century. Materials from the Josephine and Franciscan metrics, descriptions of localities and indicating the status of settlements, building regulations established for individual cities/towns of Galicia as part of the Habsburg monarchy play an important role in the study of the subject. The sources of legal regulation of town planning activities in Austria and Austria-Hungary (second half of the 18th - beginning of the 20th century) were the laws and regulations adopted at the level of central and local governments (magistrates, provincial boards). The list of such sources is wide - from the Civil Code to local specialized construction laws. The authorities also adopted provisions on the protection of cultural heritage and architectural monuments. The innovations introduced by the Austrian government were aimed at streamlining construction activities.