http://www.ewi.info/system/files/reports/Modernizing%20Municipal%20Finance%20of%20the%20Kaliningrad%

No decisions on land reserving, on confiscation, inter alia via buyouts, of sites for government or municipal purposes, and on the transfer of land lots from one category to another in the absence of territorial planning documents may be made by government and local bodies, with the exception of cases contemplated by federal laws (Art. 9).

The system of territorial planning in the RF under the Town Planning Code (hereafter, TPC) can be presented in the form of a hierarchical system of description of a territory (to be more precise, its purpose) in town planning documents. Each subsequent level of documentation is connected with greater detailing, as regards the scope of examining the territory and in terms of the description of its functional purpose.

And the levels themselves may be presented in the form of the three basic processes of town planning activity: territorial planning, urban construction zoning and area layouting.

It should be noted that the TPC does not indicate precisely the link between documentation levels and this link is most often described by reference to the need to have this or that document in the elaboration of the following.

Actually town planning activity in some municipalities boils down to providing land lots. The legislator, by introducing the Town Planning Code, sought to reintroduce a town planning function in the part of the planning of territory. The Code prescribes elaboration of territorial planning, urban construction zoning and layouting documents. One cannot expect that the architecture bodies which at this moment exist in the municipalities, with powers in the field of town planning, will fulfill this function, since architecture is only a part of town planning activities. Consequently the municipalities need a special body with responsibility for territorial planning. Without political support, that body cannot be set up. It is difficult for executive bodies to report to the politicians about conceptual changes being made in town planning and not all the municipal politicians can grasp the significance of this.

In addition, the new town planning legislation fails to clearly settle the question of relations between government bodies and bodies of local self-government.

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