The Government approved on Wednesday an emergency ordinance to amend an article in the Law on authorizing construction works and extended the categories of works in which the city mayor issues the town planning permissions and building permits.
The ordinance was not found on the list of legislative acts officially communicated by the government.
The executive motivates this change by the fact that there is a „functional blockage” in the issuance of town planning permissions and building permits for the constructions located within the monument protection areas and the perimeters of historical archaeological sites, for 85% of the capital city’s surface.
The Government explains that it approved on Wednesday an emergency ordinance to clarify the competence for the issuance of town planning permissions and building permits at the level of local public administration authorities in Bucharest. Basically, this ordinance amends art. 4 paragraph (1) letter c) and d) of Law 50/1991 on authorizing the implementation of construction works.
According to the proposed amendment, the Mayor of Bucharest will issue, with the opinion of the mayors of the Bucharest sectors, the town planning permissions and building permits for the construction works, for investments made on land exceeding the administrative-territorial limits of a city sector and/or in unincorporated areas.
The Mayor will also have the same responsibility for works categories including construction, reconstruction, extension, repair, consolidation, conservation, restoration, preservation, as well as any other works, irrespective of their value, which will be implemented for:
- Buildings, constructions or parts of buildings along with the installations, the artistic parts that are an integral part of them, together with the associated land topographically defined, including their annexes, as well as other constructions, identified within the same building, individually classified as a monument according to law 422/2001;
- Land and/or buildings, identified by cadastral number, located in protected built-up areas established according to the law;
- Buildings of special architectural or historical value, established by approved urban planning documentation;
- Land and/or buildings, identified by cadastral number, comprised of the land parcelling actions included in the List of Historical Monuments.
The Mayor will also issue the documents for the modernization, rehabilitation, extension of municipal building networks, underground or surface urban transportation, transportation and distribution for: water/sewage, gas, electricity, heating, communications – including fibre optic, implemented on the public or private land of Bucharest, as well as for the modernization and/or rehabilitation works for the streets that are in the management of the General Council of Bucharest.
Town planning permissions and building permits will be issued by the mayors of the Bucharest sectors for the works implemented within the administrative territory of the sectors, excepting those issued by the city mayor, including the historical monuments from the category of assemblies and sites, the connections related to the municipal networks.
The Government explains that these amendments were necessary as there was found a „functional blockage” at the level of Bucharest public administration authorities in the issuance of town planning permissions and building permits for the constructions located within the monument protection areas and the perimeters of archaeological sites defined as historical monument, for 85% of the capital city’s surface
„This situation was caused by the ambiguous provisions of Law 422/2001 on the protection of historical monuments, regarding the delimitation of the monument protection areas (delimitation made by calculating a surface of a 100 m radius around the historical monument, without any clear topographic delimitation); according to the same law, the archaeological sites considered historical monuments are not topographically delimited, so neither their location nor, implicitly, the protection area is clear„, states the press release issued by the Government.
The Government states that there have been situations in which building permits issued for constructions considered to be located within the protection area defined by the „100 m radius around the historical monument” have been challenged in court and even annulled, based on topographic expertise that established the location of the buildings at a distance from the historical monument different than the distance calculated by local public administration authorities, and the court considered that the permit has been issued without jurisdiction.
Official reason offered by Government: there are no jobs created and no European funds attracted for buildings
„In this situation, the issuance of building permits without jurisdiction created a legal uncertainty for investments, which led to the authorities’ refusal to issue any further such administrative acts. As a result, delays in the absorption of the EU funds and losses to local budgets have been registered, as authorization taxes were no longer collected and no investments have been promoted to generate jobs and budget revenues,” the Government also said.
