Can you build or not: check the detailed regulation plan (aka detailed urban plan)

15 November 2007 - Comments (0)

Procedures

One of the 6 things that you should check before buying a land in Belgrade, is what you are allowed to build on that land. For that, you need to obtain an urban plan excerpt (also called act on urban conditions) from the Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction. Depending whether or not a detailed regulation plan exists for the area where is the land, you might or not be able to get it. We look at this procedure in details.

Detailed regulation plans

All of Belgrade is covered by the Master Plan of Belgrade to 2021 prepared by the Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade. It was adopted by the Assembly of the City of Belgrade on September 27, 2003.

Master Plan of Belgrade to 2021 (source Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade).

The Master Plan gives the general directions and conditions of Belgrade's development. Based on that general plan, detailed regulation plans have to be done for each part of Belgrade, to specify, down to the individual plot of land, the conditions and the rules for constructions. The making of those detailed regulation plans is a work in progress. For some parts of Belgrade, it is already done, while for some other parts (the outskirts of Belgrade for instance) it is yet to be done.

detailed regulation plans = detailed urban plans

Note that detailed regulation plans done before the adoption of the new Master Plan of Belgrade in 2003, were called detailed urban plans. So “detailed regulation plans” and “detailed urban plans” are two terms for more or less the same thing.

The main difference is that, because detailed urban plans were done before the adoption of the Master Plan, they sometimes do not respect the new regulations thus creating problems for their application.

Example of a detailed regulation plan in Vračar near the Cathedral of Saint Sava (source Beoland).

urban plan excerpt = act on urban conditions

The document on urban conditions for a given land, extracted from detailed regulation plans, is called urban plan excerpt. The same document extracted from detailed urban plans (done before 2003) is called act on urban conditions (we describe this document in a dedicated article). So “urban plan excerpt” and “act on urban conditions” are two terms for the same thing. You will get one or the other depending on the position of your land in the regulation plans.

Again there is a subtle difference between the two. In order to get the act on urban conditions, you must provide the ownership paper ("vlasnicki list") that shows the ownership on the land. To get the urban plan excerpt, you do not need it.

Finding out information

To find out the right information on your land, you need to go to the Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction. They only work with clients 2 hours in the afternoon, from 14:00 to 16:00, each weekday, except Friday. There is now a new possibility to gain information using online tools that we describe in another article.

In the Secretariat, you can ask verbally an insight into the detailed regulation plan for the area where the land is located. You will get an unofficial answer that you can use for yourself. If you need a formal answer, to proceed in a construction permit for instance, you need to fill a request and for that you will need the copy of the plan of the plot from the Geodetic Authority that is less than 6 months old.

Regardless of whether you ask informally or formally, you can get different types of answer depending of the situation of the land.

1. A detailed regulation plan exists for the area where is the land

   You can get all the basic information about planned roads or infrastructure, construction coefficients and so on. You should as well be able to get the urban plan excerpt for the land. In some cases, you may not be able to get the urban plan excerpt without doing an urban project for the land first. That can happen, for instance, if the land doesn't have direct access to a public road, if there are corrections of the borders of the land or if it has to be split.

2. There is no detailed regulation plan for the area where is the land

   In that case, you cannot get any information (besides what is contained in the Master Plan), nor you can get the urban plan excerpt. In some cases, you might be allowed to get the urban plan excerpt based on the Master Plan and on an urban project. You have to check with the Secretariat of Urban Planning and Construction if there is such a possibility. Depending on the location and other factors, they may approve it. In this case, we will be asked to do an urban project for your land.

The outcome is that you may or may not get the urban plan excerpt, with or without the need to do an urban project for the land. We explain the making of an urban project in a specific article. Remain only whether or not you can get the urban plan excerpt.

If you are able to get the urban plan excerpt

The urban plan excerpt, that you obtain from the Secretariat, gives you all information you need to plan building. You will get information to which zone belongs your land (individual construction zone, commercial zone, industrial zone, etc...), the minimum distance from streets, the allowed construction ratio and some other construction parameters. We detail this essential paper in a dedicated article. From there you can proceed to get a building permit.

If you cannot get the urban plan excerpt

This is the case if there is no detailed regulation plan for the area where is your land and no possibility to get one with an urban project. It simply means you cannot legally build on your land just yet. Of course, for many people, this not an acceptable situation and they proceed to build without a permit that they cannot get anyway. Hopefully, this situation will get better as more and more parts of Belgrade get covered with detailed regulation plans.