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Towards More Efficient Construction Permitting. www.policycafe.rs. Doing Business Report – E fficiency of Construction Permits. Number of Construction Permits Issued by Months. Number of construction permits in 2012 is 25% less than in 2008. Increase in 2012 over 2011 was only 2%.
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Towards More Efficient Construction Permitting www.policycafe.rs
Number of Construction Permits Issued by Months • Number of construction permits in 2012 is 25% less than in 2008. • Increase in 2012 over 2011 was only 2%.
Root Causes of Inefficiency in Construction Permits • Unresolved ownership issues • Lack, or poor quality, of planning documents • Poor state of registries of available infrastructure • Too many authorized bodies, too little responsibility • Capacities of the public sector • System of control over the work of licensed engineers
Approach to the Reforms • Without radical changes – avoid revolutionary changes and rely whenever possible on existing basis • Changes to regulations are not enough – thorough control of implementation and improvements in capacities of public sector are needed • Introduction of the construction permitting IT platform might be most important element of our proposal
Key Elements of the New Concept • Simplified planning • Change of the role of public enterprises (system operators) • Property ownership postulated as a starting point for the construction process and land regulation • Differentiation of public sector involvement and control by the complexity and risk level of the project • Transferring responsibilities to licensed engineers with increased level of their professional liability (with simultaneous shift of focus of public bodies from prior control to compliance control)
Spatial and Zoning Plans • Decision on preparation of a planning document and adoption of the concept of a planning document to be merged in a single step • Secure an adequate public input in the planning process • Redefine deadlines for adoption of plans • Provide resources to support local governments who need resources to prepare plans • Consider sanctions against local governments that fail to adopt legally required plans • Apply general urban planning parameters and higher level plans when required plans are not adopted
Elaborate for Construction Designing • Contains elements needed for construction designing currently provided on case-by-case basis • Adopted and adjusted in a simple procedure • Its existence makes the location permit unnecessary for vast majority of projects • It simplifies content of planning documents • System operators’ conditions for project designs are required only for more complex and specifically defined projects
Pracelization • Parcelization procedure must not depend on existence of detailed zoning plans – smallest allowed size of a land parcel should be defined in the Republic-wide general urban planning parameters, by specific categories of projects allowed. • A zoning plan can provide for a smallest allowed size of a land parcel to be smaller than provided in the general urban planning parameters.
Risk Based Control • Categorization of projects in accordance with the level of risks associated with their construction and use (probably 5-6 categories) • Required content of the project designs and level of control during constructions will be determined by the project’s risk categorization
One Stop Shop – for More Transparency and Efficiency • OSS is even now a rule, but a rule that was in practice made an exception • We propose making the One Stop Shop a mandatory • Obligation of the local government to initiate procedure against system operators who do not respect legally defined deadlines and other obligations • Mandatory use of the permitting IT platform • Mandatory publishing on the Internet of all relevant documents – generally applicable as well as case-specific ones
Construction Commission as an Expert Arbiter • If a public authority finds a project design flawed, the Construction Commission has to determine and publish who is responsible for that – licensed engineer or the public authority • Commission is authorized to review complaints about the content of the Elaborate
Professional Indemnity Insurance • Mechanism for licensing of planning, project design and other firms • Mandatory Professional Indemnity Insurance • Improve control and oversight of the work of licensed engineers • Mandatory publishing of data on projects that engineers were engaged on • Introduce the legal category of main engineer when more than one licensed engineer is engaged at a same project
Principles of Regulatory reform • This is not about changing a law, it is about changing the system and making it more efficient • The Law on Planning and Construction (LPC) should be „deregulated“ by moving number of its provision into bylaws • The Public discussion should encompass the package contain changes to the LPC, sectoral laws and most important bylaws • Without a political commitment to implement reforms, it is better not to engage in significant changes to the current system
Land Management • Scarce resources for development of zoning plans, infrastructure development etc. should be focused on areas with biggest potential to attract investments • State owned land that is not in productive use should be transferred to local governments to prepare plans, provide infrastructure and make it available for investors • Redefinition of the land development charge should be considered
Final Recommendation • As with many key public sector issues, the key challenge is not content of a law but harmonization of different laws and regulations • Another key challenge is implementation of laws on regulations • An effective way to deal with these challenges would be to form a high level inter-ministerial political body to coordinate changes of required laws and bylaws and their implementation
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