Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This is an briefly point out the most important amendments introduced in the
Romanian Construction Law and Romanian Urban Planning Law:
- Introducing real estate from the outside the city limits area
(extravilan) into the area within the city limits (intravilan) by
drafting and enacting a PUZ is allowed only if the relevant land
area cumulatively meets the following conditions: (i) the land has
a minimum area of 5,000m2 and (ii) is adjacent to an area
already situated within the city limits area of that locality. As an
exception, the creation of isolated intramural areas is allowed only if the
access and utility infrastructure required for the investment project
already exists or if the PUZ provides that the required infrastructure must
be built at the same time as the investment project;
- Both the Construction Law and the Urban Planning Law contain new
regulations increasing liability in the event of failure to observe their
provisions, especially an increased number of regulatory offences
and higher fines where regulatory offences are committed. The
statute of limitation applicable to these sanctions has been
extended from three years to five years from the date when the
offence is committed, and the ascertaining of irregularities by the
Construction Supervision Authority will lead to the mandatory
suspension of the construction works (suspension being an optional
measure up to now). Furthermore, it is now expressly stipulated that the
Construction Supervision Authority can request the cancellation of
building permits in court;
- The validity period for building permits (i.e. the deadline by which
the beneficiary has to start the construction works) can be fixed up to
24 months. Furthermore, it has been clarified that the validity period
for urban planning documents is extended until the investment
project has been completed, provided that the town planning
certificate for the building permit is obtained within the validity
period of the relevant urban planning documents. The urban
planning documents for which no validity period was expressly stipulated
will be valid until approval of new urban planning documentation,
replacing or amending the previous documentation as appropriate;
- The standards for implementing the Construction Law and the Urban
Planning Law are to be updated in the near future; thus, further
amendments to the legal regulations in the fields of construction and
urban planning are expected to follow.
To sum up, the Construction Law and Urban Planning Law have been
significantly amended. General trends towards making the planning
permission procedure for construction work stricter in Romania are visible, as
well as a greater concern of the legislator to adopt measures to eliminate
bureaucracy, increase transparency and step up the fight against corruption.