Kyiv City Council, by Resolution dated 4 March 2015, adopted the new Procedure of Transfer (Granting) of Land Plots from Municipal Propertyin Kyiv City (hereinafter the “Procedure”).

Although there have been no substantive changesto the core legislation relating to land matters recently,the new Procedure offers a number of improvements as comparedto the InterimProcedure of Transfer(Granting) of Land Plots from Municipal Propertyin Kyiv City, which was in place since 2013. Such improvements are mainly procedural and aimed at facilitation and ensuring transparency of the process of obtaining rights to municipalland plots in Kyiv. The main improvements are:

    Theinitial permits for preparationof land development documentation will beissued not by the vote of the entire City Council,but by the resolution of its committee on architecture, construction and land use. This should result in quicker issuanceof the permits as the entire City Council,which proved to be inefficient in such matters,will not be involved at this initial stage,while the committee works and takes decisions on a permanent basis (at least bi-weekly).

    TheProcedure introduce the tacitconsent principle forpreparation of land development documentation and technical documentation. In case a permitor a substantiated refusal for preparation of land development documentation is not provided within a month, the applicant will be entitled to start preparation of land development documentation without the said permitfollowing a month periodupon a notice given to the City Council(hence, the total waiting period after which the tacit consent principle applies is two months).It appears that this noveltymay be useful for both the City Council and the applicants, since it allows to start preparation of land development documentation without waiting for the relevantwritten permitif it is not givenin a timely manner due to heavy workload of the authorities or otherwise.

   There is an opportunity for an investor to obtain ownership, lease or permanentuse of the land plot without preparingthe land development documentation if (a) the land plot has been registered with the State Land Cadaster, (b) title to the land plot has been registered with the State Register of Rightsto Immovable Property, and (c) the land plot’s borders and intendeduse remain the same.

   Sublease of municipally owned land plots withoutobtaining separate approval from the City Council is possible if the lessee’sright to sublease the land plot (or a part of it) is envisaged by the currentlease agreement and the Council’sinitial resolution on the lease of the land plot.

   It is now expresslyprohibited repeatedly reject the land development documentation or technical documentation after the applicantcured the specific defects identified by the Department of Land Resources. Notably, a similar rule was earlier introduced for state registrars of rightsto immovable property, but, unfortunately, it has not led to full elimination of groundless rejections of documents. Therefore, efficiency of this rule in the practiceof the Department of Land Resources is not yet clearand would depend on the Department’s approachin the first place.

   The Procedurerequires land users to apply to the City Council for specific approvals for change of land plot’s type of use (i.e. the sub-use within the broader designated land category). We consider this as an attempt of the City Council to increase control over the use of municipal lands,in particular, to minimizeimproper use of land plots and unauthorized constructions. However, it is not yet clear how this control functionwill be implementedin the absence of up-to-date general plan and zoningplans in the city, which generally remainsan issue.