Construction Permit and Procedure of its Obtaining under the Urban Construction Code of the Russian Federation

According to the Article 222 of the Civil Code of Russian Federation a dwelling house, other structure, installation or other immovable property created on a land plot not allotted for these purposes in the procedure established by a law and other legal acts, or created without obtaining the necessary authorizations for this, or with a material violation of urban construction and construction norms and rules, shall be an arbitrary structure.

A person who has effectuated an arbitrary structure shall not acquire the right of ownership in it. He shall not have the right to dispose of the structure – to sell, give, lease out, or conclude other transactions.

The arbitrary structure shall be subject to demolition by the person who effectuated it or at his expense, except for the instances when the right of ownership in an arbitrary structure may be recognized by a court, and in another procedure established by a law, for the person in whose ownership, inheritable possession for life, permanent (or perpetual) use the land plot is where the structure was effectuated.

Capital construction and reconstruction of capital construction objects is exercised in Russia on the basis of a construction permit except of some cases stated by the Urban Construction Code of the Russian Federation (the UCC).

According to the Article 51 of the UCC a construction permit is a document stating the conformity of the project documentation with the requirements of the town planning of the land plot or with the project of the territorial planning and boundaries establishing project and providing the builder with the right to exercise construction, reconstruction of capital construction objects, except for the cases stipulated by the UCC. It is not allowed to issue construction permits in the absence of land use and development rules except for construction, reconstruction of capital construction objects on a land plots that are not subject to town planning regulations or for which such regulations are not established, and in some other cases specified by the Federal laws. A construction permit is issued by the local municipality at the place of location of the land plot except for the cases stipulated by Parts 5 and 6 of the Article 51 of the UCC and by other Federal laws. In cases stipulated by the provisions of that Parts of the Article 51 a construction permit is issued by the Federal bodies authorized to deal, for example, with special economy zone; the State Fund of entrails; nuclear energy; objects of the cultural heritage; and other special scopes.

According to the Part 17 of the Article 51 of the UCC issuing of the construction permit is not required in the following cases:

1. construction of a garage on the land plot provided to an individual for purposes not connected with entrepreneurial activity or construction on the land plot provided for gardening or summer residence construction
2. construction, reconstruction of objects not subject to capital construction (stands, stalls, sunshades, etc.);
3. construction of auxiliary buildings and facilities on the land plot;
4. alterations of capital construction objects and/or their parts unless that alterations affect constructive and other characteristics of reliability and safety and do not exceed limited parameters of allowed construction and reconstruction established by town-planning regulations;
   4.1) capital repair of obtaining capital construction objects;
5. in other cases when in compliance with the UCC and a regional subjects’ legislation of the Russian Federation regarding town-planning activities a construction permit is not required.

The Part 7 of the Article 51 dictates that in order to obtain a construction permit a builder must apply for to a competent body and to produce following documents:

1. the title-deeds of the land plot;
2. urban development plan of the land plot;
3. design documentation materials:
   1. an explanatory note;
   2. a layout drawing of the land plot designed in accordance with the urban development plan of the land plot, indicating the location of the object of capital construction, entrances and passages to it, the zone boundaries of the easements, sites of archaeological heritage;
   3. a layout drawing of the land plot confirming the location of a linear object within red lines approved in the planning territory documentation;
   4. plans displaying an architectural solutions;
   5. data about engineering equipment, summary plan of networks of engineering and technical supply with marks of connections the capital construction object to city networks of engineering and technical supply;
   6. the capital construction organization design;
   7. the design of organizing the demolition or dismantling of the capital construction objects or their parts;
4. positive conclusion of the state expert examination about the design documentation (applicable to the project documentation stipulated by Article 49 of the UCC), positive conclusion of the state environmental expert examination of the design documentation in cases stipulated by Part 6 of the Article 49 of the UCC;
5. permit for deviation from the limiting parameters of permitted construction, reconstruction (if the builder has been granted such permit in compliance with Article 40 of the UCC).
6. consent of all the holders of the capital construction object in case of its reconstruction.

In order to obtain a construction permit with regard to construction, reconstruction of a dwelling-house an individual applies for to a competent body and following documents must be attached to the application:

1. title-deeds of the land plot;
2. urban development plan of the land plot;
3. a layout drawing of the land plot with indicating of the dwelling-house location (Part 9 of the Article 51 of the UCC).

The competent authorized body for construction permits issuance must consider the application for the term of 10 days after receiving the one. In particularly they must:

1. check the contents of documents attached to the application;
2. examine whether design documentation complies with the requirements of the urban development plan of the land plot. If the builder has been granted a permit for deviation from limited parameters of permitted construction, reconstruction, the design documentation must be examined on the subject of compliance with the requirements of the permit for such deviation;
3. grant a construction permit or issue a reasonable refusal (Part 11 of the Article 51 of the UCC).

If an application for construction permit rejected such rejection could be appealed before a court (Part 14 of the Article 51 of the UCC).

In practice the term of application considering could has been turned much more lengthen. According to the World Bank study Doing Business, approval of an average complexity building with connection to networks in Moscow takes 423 days and the completion of 51 different procedures. The very long term of a builder’s application considering came in for a lot of criticism, and has raised much debate in both Moscow Administration and in the Parliament as well as in a regional governments.

The construction permit is issued for the period provided in construction organization design except for cases when the one is issued in relation separate stages of construction, reconstruction, according with the Part 12 of the Article 51 of the UCC. The construction permit with regard to dwell housing construction is issued for period of 10 years. The validity period of a construction permit may be extended by the competent authorized body.

Evgeny Nagornyy
October 2012