Problem

For a long time, the system for establishing and changing the designated purpose of a land plot has been characterized by archaic, cumbersome procedures and provided fertile soil for various corrupt practices. This problem is due to:
a flawed procedure for changing the designated purpose, as the legislation did not provide clear criteria for officials to be guided by when making relevant decisions. As a result, the refusal to approve was discretionary and could be granted using general provisions of the law or regulations that do not directly regulate the preparation of land management documentation;
the prevalence of the interests of an individual (group of individuals) over the needs of the respective territorial community. This practice had a negative impact on the economic development of the regions and failed to ensure the proper allocation, use, and protection of land in a particular area.
The legislator attempted to change this approach by harmonizing the use of land plots with integrated development of the territory. Thus, in 2020, the groundwork was laid for a comprehensive procedure for managing urban development of the entire territory of a territorial community, which aims to simplify the procedure for changing the designated purpose of a land plot. However, the designated purpose is currently changed according to the old procedure, since the development and approval of comprehensive plans for the spatial development of the territory of territorial communities is almost never carried out, and therefore, information about functional zones or information from an extract from urban planning documentation is not entered into the State Land Cadaster. This is due to the difficulty in securing funding for the development of such plans, in particular, the provision of a subvention from the state budget, since one of the conditions for its provision is the availability of an updated cartographic substrate in digital form in the USK-2000 state geodesic coordinate system. As a result, territorial communities are unable to immediately start developing a comprehensive plan with state support, as they must first spend their own resources on developing an updated cartographic substrate, whereas this could be one of the stages of developing a comprehensive plan.