Institutional support for spatial planning of the amalgamated territorial communities

Abstract

The paper defines the nature of “spatial planning”, the problems of its legal definition in the domestic legal field and supplication in practical planning activity. The range of concepts close by nature to “spatial planning” that are approved by national regulative documents and sued in scientific research are outlined and systematized, including: «urban planning activity», «planning of territorial development», «spatial planning», etc. The provisions of legal maintenance of urban planning at local level for consolidated territorial communities (CTCs) are explained. The level of provision of the CTCs of local level with urban planning documentation is assessed and perspective documents of spatial planning provided by the Law №6403 are analyzed. The paper proves the close connection between urban planning documentation and strategic planning at local level displayed in regulative documents and reveals the weak institutional maintenance of their realization mechanism and limited urban planning monitoring functions. The paper emphasizes the need for synchronization of legal changes at various levels of implementation of urban planning activity as far as mutual alignment and making of efficient management decisions can lead to stimulation of rational spatial development and further to more efficient local self-governance reform. The paper argues that the CTCs’ territorial planning schemes elaborated by territorial communities are not the documents of local laval, but rather of the regional one. They are poorly adjusted to other regulative documents of urban planning and land management, therefore there is the need for unification and final approval of the new list of integrated spatial planning documents at local level, modernization of spatial planning instruments at local level, standardization of approaches to their development and implementation based on the standards of similar documents in the practice of spatial planning in the EU countries. Improvement of institutional maintenance of spatial planning at local level through attraction of civil expert councils to the practice of documents elaboration and creation of an authority on urban planning and architecture in the structure of CTC council executive committee are suggested.