Bill would stop urban plans being voided over minor flaws

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The bill would allow territorial and urban planning instruments to be declared null and void for formal or procedural flaws only in very serious cases, such as approval by a clearly incompetent body, skipping the environmental assessment, or completely omitting public information. Other flaws could be corrected without voiding the plan.
2. A four-year deadline, counted from publication of the final approval, would apply to indirectly challenging a plan on strictly formal, non-substantial grounds. Currently there is no such time limit.
3. The actio popularis, which lets anyone demand compliance with urban planning law, would be limited against plans: it could only address material aspects unless formal flaws have a significant influence, and the person using it must prove that. Also, no financial compensation would be allowed for dropping the case.
4. The compensation for preventing someone from taking part in a new development would be corrected, after a Constitutional Court ruling struck down the previous criterion. It would be calculated by applying the developer profit percentage to the land value once the development is finished, minus pending costs and obligations.
5. New rules for the Property Registry are added: how to cancel the recorded right of repurchase in urban expropriations, and a seven-year expiration period for the encumbrance on land from the benefit and burden distribution process. A 30-year expiration is also added to the expropriation law.
6. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda would set up, within one year of the law taking effect, an online platform to speed up the request, issuance and tracking of sector reports affecting urban plans.

Who it affects

• Local governments and public administrations: They could correct flaws in their urban plans without the plans being voided, and would get a platform to speed up sector reports.
• Landowners: They would have a new criterion for compensation if barred from taking part in a development, plus clearer rules on the right of repurchase.
• Anyone using the urban planning public action: They would face limits: they must prove the relevance of formal flaws they claim, and cannot get financial compensation for dropping the case.
• The cities of Ceuta and Melilla: A typo in the rule on their urban planning powers would be corrected.

Words worth knowing

Instrumentos de ordenación territorial y urbanística

Planning instruments that decide how land is used in a territory: what can be built, where, and for what purpose.

Nulidad de pleno derecho

Full nullity: a rule or act is considered invalid from the start, as if it never existed.

Acción pública

Public action: the right of any person to go to the courts or the administration to demand compliance with urban planning law, without proving personal harm.

Derecho de reversión

Right of repurchase: the expropriated owner's right to get the property back if it is not used for the purpose that justified the expropriation.

Equidistribución de beneficios y cargas

Distribution of benefits and burdens: sharing among landowners the gains and costs of a development project.

It summarizes the text as it was introduced. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries