The importance of territorial zoning in determining the legal regime of land

In the Concept of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020¹ tasks are set to reduce investment and entrepreneurial risks, increase the average level of housing provision, and reduce the share of the population living in areas with an unfavorable environmental situation. Solving these tasks is difficult to imagine without forming a well-coordinated mechanism for determining the legal regime of land.

The legal regime of land is determined in various ways, including the classification of land into categories, specific types of territorial zoning, the establishment of zones with special conditions for land use, and others. A single land plot may simultaneously be subject to the legal regime of a specific category of land, a territorial zone, and a zone with special conditions for land use, which often leads to conflicts between these legal regimes. In this situation, the primary issue is the harmonization of methods for determining the legal regime of land, as well as understanding the role and place of each such method within a unified system.

Territorial zoning is intended to ensure a clear definition of the legal regime for land, which will contribute to: 1) increasing guarantees for owners and other holders of property and obligation rights on real estate; 2) attracting investments in real estate; 3) resolving housing issues; 4) creating a stable financial basis for socio-economic development of municipal formations through increased revenues from the land tax to local budgets (until the introduction into force of the property tax); 5) ensuring sustainable territorial development.

Land zoning documents are approved by normative legal acts and must be officially published. For projects of territorial planning and urban development zoning, mandatory public hearings are provided for. Participants in public hearings have the right to submit their comments and proposals, which must be taken into account when approving the relevant documents, thereby influencing the determination of the legal regime of land.

At the same time, legislation does not fully define the relationship between functional zoning within the framework of the territorial planning institution and land use zoning. This often leads to court proceedings, creates difficulties in law enforcement, and prevents the proper realization of the potential of territorial planning and land use zoning in determining the legal regime of lands. The significance of ecological zoning in determining the legal regime of lands has not been sufficiently studied.

The situation is exacerbated by the absence in Russian legislation, scientific literature, and law enforcement practice of a unified terminology applicable to norms regulating social relations related to territorial zoning.

Taking into account the above, it can be noted that defining the legal regime of land based on individual types of territorial zoning is accompanied by a large number of both theoretical and practical legal problems, the resolution of which is largely complicated by insufficient development of the relevant topic in scientific literature. These grounds have determined the choice of the theme of this research.

Level of scientific development of the research topic. Individual issues regarding the legal regime of land have been studied in the works of G.A. Aksenchenko, V.P. Balezin, L.E. Bandorin, S.A. Bogolyubov, M.M. Brinchuk, V.A. Borov, G.A. Volkov, E.A. Galinskaya, M.Yu. Galiatin, A.K. Golichenkov, O.L. Dubovik, I.I. Evtykhieva, B.V. Erofeev, Yu.G. Zharikov, G.L. Zemlyakova, O.A. Zotova, I.A. Ikonicheva, N.V. Kichigin, M.I. Kozyr, O.I. Krassov, N.I. Krasnov, N.N. Melnikov, E.L. Minina, T.V. Petrova, E.K. Trutneva, V.V. Ustyukova, A.V. Cherednikov, V.E. Churkin and others.

L.E. Bandorin examined separate issues of land zoning in the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Juridical Sciences "Permitted Use of Land Plots" (2011), O.A. Zotova in the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Juridical Sciences "Legal Regime of Land in Protective Zones" (2013), and A.V. Cherednikov in the dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Juridical Sciences "Urban Planning Zoning as a Means of Ensuring Public Environmental and Private Interests" (2012).

Other scholars have also made significant contributions to the study of the legal regime of land and territorial zoning, as reflected in the bibliography. However, the comprehensive significance of territorial zoning in determining the legal regime of land has not been considered in legal research.

Subject of Research includes norms of environmental, land, and urban planning legislation regulating social relations related to territorial zoning, law enforcement practice, and scientific literature.

Research Objective – to identify the legal consequences of territorial zoning in order to determine the legal regime of land.

To achieve this objective, the following tasks were set:

• to define the content of territorial zoning;
• to examine individual types of territorial zoning (urban planning zoning, functional zoning, ecological zoning), and to determine the relationship between these types of territorial zoning in order to establish the legal regime of land;
• to determine the relationship between territorial zoning, classification of land into categories based on purpose, and establishment of zones with special conditions for land use in order to define the legal regime of land;
• to analyze the characteristics of territorial zoning in foreign countries (using the examples of the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States).

Theoretical basis of the research was formed by works of scholars in the field of general theory of law – S.S. Alekseev, N.A. Vlasenko, V.V. Lazarev, M.N. Marchenko, A.V. Mitskevich, B.C. Nerseyants, A.S. Pigolkin; administrative law – D.N. Bakhrakh, A.F. Nosdrachev, Yu.A. Tikhomirov; civil law – S.N. Bratusya, L.A. Novoselova, O.N. Sadikov, E.A. Sukhanov, G.F. Shershenevich; environmental and land law – G.A. Aksenchenko, A.P. Anisimov, V.P. Balezin, R.D. Bogolepov, S.A. Bogolyubov, M.M. Brinchuk, M.I. Vasilyeva, G.A. Volkov, E.A. Galinovskaya, A.K. Golichenkov, O.L. Dubovik, I.I. Evtykhieva, Yu.G. Zharikov, I.A. Iconitskaya, N.D. Kazantsev, N.V. Kichigin, M.I. Kozyr, O.S. Kolbasov, N.I. Krassnov, O.I. Krassova, V.V. Kruzhkov, E.L. Minina, V.V. Petrov, T.V. Petrova, N.A. Syrodoyev, V.V. Ustyukova, G.V. Chubukov and others.

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