The creation of an urban planning cadastre of Ukraine should be completed by 2021. Therefore, it is important for us to actively cooperate in this process. The local self-government should provide data and create conditions that will then be used at the regional level. But an important condition is to take into account both the state interests from the point of view of development and planning of territories of Ukraine, and local interests of hromadas that want to develop and attract investments.

The task of creating the Urban Planning Cadastre should be considered in the context of the decentralisation and regional development reform, which is determined by two main indicators: the human development index and the regional competitiveness index, stated Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, during a strategic session in Zhytomyr on the creation of the urban planning cadastre in Ukraine.

"With the creation of the Urban Planning Cadastre, we will achieve the quality, publicity and efficiency of making managerial decisions, improving the investment climate, simplifying and accelerating licensing procedures in the field of construction, transparency of spatial planning, design and construction processes. But what is most important – we will get new opportunities for the development and economic growth of the regions", emphasised Hennadii Zubko.

The Vice Prime Minister also mentioned the issue of local budgets’ performance, which at the end of 2017 amounted to UAH 19 billion. "It is important for us that these budgets increase not only due to the increased state support. And in the first place - by creating additional tools that will attract investment in the future. And the creation of the urban planning cadastre is just one of these tools, allowing to analyse the mechanism of accounting for both real estate and land, register of leaseholders, boundaries of land plots, etc. It is the implementation of the cadastre that will enable to increase local budget revenues and build absolutely fair conditions for doing business on the ground," Hennadii Zubko said.

The Urban Planning Cadastre of Ukraine will be created at the expense of the state support, international partners, expert environment and local self-government.

In turn, Mathias Brandt, project manager of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, expressed his support and noted that the Government of Germany is ready to join and assist in the creation of the urban planning cadastre. "It is necessary to create a system in the country that will provide geospatial data about the cadastre system, owners of land plots and their boundaries. After all, land is the main asset of any hromada, which allows primarily to attract investments and develop local self-governance", emphasised Mathias Brandt.

According to Hennadii Zubko, when creating a cadastre, an important element is the transparency, security and reduction of corruption risks. "We must set the goal and clearly understand what we want from the functioning of the system for each local self-government and residents. And such a system is KPI, which must be considered in the process of creation," said the official.

He noted that it does not matter how many people are involved in the process of creating a cadastre, the ultimate goal is to increase local budget revenues, and build a client's route card with which he/she can register a land plot. Currently, this process takes from 70 to 294 days.

It is worth mentioning that the city of Zhytomyr is not chosen by chance for a strategic session on the creation and maintenance of the urban planning cadastre. It is in Zhytomyr and three cities of Ukraine – Vinnytsia, Poltava and Chernivtsi – that the GIZ project "Integrated Urban Development in Ukraine" is being implemented. In addition to improving the living conditions of the urban population and sustainable urban development, the project also foresees the creation of urban planning cadastres.

The participants of the strategic session included experts from MinRegion, representatives of BRDO, IDLO, GIZ, architects and scientists, expert organisations and representatives of local self-government bodies from all over Ukraine.