Investment Freeze in Bucharest: The General Urban Plan Expires Soon. What Are the Risks?

Investment freeze in Bucharest: The General Urban Plan expires soon. What are the risks?

The Capital could be left without urban planning rules, meaning authorization documents could no longer be issued, warns the current mayor. The city’s General Urban Plan expires on December 21, 2015, necessitating the urgent approval of an extension resolution. Otherwise, Bucharest could face an unprecedented deadlock.

Investment freeze in Bucharest: The General Urban Plan expires soon. What are the risks? The risk of an economic freeze looms over the Capital, warns current General Mayor Răzvan Sava. The General Urban Plan of Bucharest expires in less than two weeks, and without a law to regulate urban planning rules, authorization documents can no longer be issued within the city’s territory.

„It was the duty of the acting general mayors to solve this problem. Now, to avoid placing the Capital in the danger of an investment insecurity climate, a responsible decision toward Bucharest residents is needed: the emergency approval of a resolution to extend the General Urban Plan,” claims General Mayor Răzvan Sava, adding that extending this document does not solve the underlying issue regarding the Capital’s urban regulations.

According to the law, initiating procedures regarding urban regulations is an exclusive attribute of the general mayor

According to Law 303/27.11.2012, the General Urban Plan of Bucharest can be extended for a period of one year

Law 52/2003 provides, in Article 7, paragraph 13, that ”in the case of regulating a situation which, due to its exceptional circumstances, requires the adoption of immediate solutions to avoid serious harm to the public interest, draft normative acts are subject to adoption under the emergency procedure provided by current regulations.”

The current PUG was developed for the 2000-2010 period and subsequently extended for another five years. In 2012, a solution competition for the development of the PUG was launched, and in October 2013, a contract was signed for the revision of Bucharest’s urban planning law. With a value of 35,225,000 RON (excluding VAT) and an implementation period of 41 months, the contract provided for the following stages:

Stage 1: development of the synthesized form of the current General Urban Plan and the current state of urban development (4 months)

Stage 2: development of the General Urban Plan and the Local Urban Planning Regulation (17 months)

Stage 3: preparation of specific documentation for obtaining the permits necessary for the approval of the General Urban Plan of Bucharest and the Local Urban Planning Regulation by the General Council of Bucharest and obtaining these permits (4 months)

Strategic for the development of any city, the document regulates the organization of the street network, architectural-urban planning organization, land use, utility infrastructure development, legal status and land circulation, and the protection of historical monuments. So far, although 22 months have passed, Bucharest is still in Phase 1 of the work, namely the evaluation of the current situation, due to a lack of coordination between the Capital City Hall, sector city halls, utility network owners, and other state institutions.

„All institutional decision-makers must understand that the urban plan is not just another document formally adopted once every 10 years. It is a mathematical model with a high degree of predictability which, once operational, can indicate, for example, that real estate development in an area will lead to the blocking of road infrastructure, provides clues for adjusting the public transport schedule, and estimates if utility networks are correctly sized. Another beneficial effect of having a coherent general urban plan is the rapid issuance of multiple documents, such as urban planning certificates, building permits, and other local permits and authorizations,” concludes General Mayor Răzvan Sava, stating that he has initiated steps to unblock the PUG revision procedures.