Land use planning as tool for sustainable development

The purpose of the article is to evaluate role of land use planning project (hereinafter - LUPP) specified in the legislation of Latvia in sustainable development of territory. In Land Use Planning Law adopted in 2006, LUPP is project for arrangement of territory and measures of improvement of land use conditions, for part of an administrative territory of local government, separate immovable property or land parcel, which is developed for exchange of land parcels or elimination of inter-areas, for reorganisation of land parcel boundaries, as well as for subdivision of land parcels. In Latvia for sustainable development of the territory, legislative acts of spatial development planning system have been adopted at several levels, from which for detailed arrangement of territory detailed plan should be developed. The detailed plan often includes reorganisation of land parcel boundaries, but legislation determines that detailed plan should be developed in territories specified in spatial plan, mainly before commencing new construction. The LUPP is not planning instrument for territory development and may be developed in territories in which regulatory framework do not provide development of detailed plan. However, in local governments it is relatively common that for areas intended, for example, for individual building, for subdivision of land parcels, LUPP rather than detailed plan has been chooses to develop. In order to clarify these concerns, the study carried out survey of specialists of local governments and the article summarises analysis of results about development of LUPP in relevant local governments, as well as, on the basis of relevant regulatory enactments, compared the objectives and conditions for development of LUPP and detailed plan.