It was published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre draft act on changing the use of certain non-residential buildings to residential buildings.
The draft law aims to facilitate the conversion of an office or commercial building into a residential building due to the need for its reconstruction.
Below is a brief description of the solutions included in the project:
- easing the regulations for the transformation of facilities that are the subject of the draft act (i.e. office buildings or trade into residential) so that any reconstruction serving a regulated change of use (including the reconstruction of external walls) did not require or building permits, nor reporting, except for structural elements of the building, as crucial for the safety of users;
- facilitating the conversion of office and commercial buildings into residential buildings will not apply to buildings and areas covered by forms of monument protection, referred to in Article 7 of the Act of 23 July 2003 on the protection and care of monuments or included in the municipal register of monuments.
- the above solutions can be used for a period of 2 years from the date of entry into force of the Act, i.e. for the time related to responding to the effects of the pandemic and the situation in Ukraine;
- in terms of spatial planning, it will be easier to change the use of office buildings to residential ones, but also to locate residential investments in areas formerly occupied by unused office buildings and large-scale commercial facilities, enabling the implementation of these investments using the tools introduced by the special housing act:
- a residential investment or accompanying investment is carried out regardless of the existence or provisions of a local spatial development plan, provided that it is not inconsistent with the study of conditions and directions of spatial development of the commune, and the condition of non-contradiction with the study does not apply to areas that were previously used as railway, military, production or postal services areas, and these functions are not currently carried out on these areas;
- the draft bill proposes to extend the exception to areas where office buildings or commercial facilities with a sales area exceeding 2,000 m2;
- in accordance with the provisions of the special housing act, these areas must be equipped with the necessary infrastructure and meet the urban planning standards specified in the act;
- adding a new provision that will require notifying the commune head (mayor, city president) about a change in the use of a building in the manner provided for in the draft act.
- in the special housing act it is also proposed that in the case of using the above-mentioned option, the investor was obliged to present to the municipality an offer to purchase residential premises, single-family residential buildings with an area of at least 5% of the total area of residential premises, single-family residential buildings and other residential areas created as part of the investment;
- The two-year validity period of the act in question does not apply to changes introduced in the special housing act – the proposed change will remain in force until the special housing act ceases to be in force, due to the parallel work on the reform of the spatial planning system.
The bill assumes that the act will enter into force 14 days after its publication.
The bill was referred to the Legal Affairs Committee for consideration.
The content of the project is available here.