News

Sandra Kaas, co-head of RASK's Environmental Law and Spatial Planning practice, and partner Annika Vait successfully represented a real estate developer before the Supreme Court in a dispute with Viimsi Municipality concerning the invalidation of a detailed spatial plan.

The dispute revolved around the question of whether a local government may declare a detailed spatial plan invalid in order to remove from the legal system an old detailed spatial plan that had not been implemented. The Administrative Court and the Circuit Court ruled in favor of the municipality. The Supreme Court overturned the lower courts' decisions and granted the developer's appeal in full. This is a landmark ruling for all landowners and local governments. The Supreme Court clarified several important issues that had previously been unclear in practice.

The Supreme Court explained that invalidating a detailed spatial plan against the owner's will would significantly violate their fundamental right to property. The building rights for the plot arising from the detailed spatial plan must be presumed to constitute a significant portion of the property's value. The scope and content of the right to use real property are determined by the building rights set out in the detailed spatial plan for the plot, which gives the landowner a more firmly established position within the scope of the fundamental right to property. While the weight of this position may diminish over time due to a decrease in legitimate expectations, it does not cease to exist.

The extent to which the fundamental right to property is violated depends significantly on whether the matter in question involves applying for a new, more favourable right of use for a plot of land through a detailed spatial plan or terminating a right of use permitted by an existing detailed spatial plan against the owner's will, whether through changing the spatial plan, declaring it invalid or adopting a new spatial plan. Consequently, the local government unit has different levels of discretion when making such decisions. A detailed spatial plan favourable to the landowner must be invalidated for significantly more compelling reasons than those that would suffice to refuse to adopt a detailed spatial plan requested by the owner.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court emphasised that, even after five years have passed, the fundamental right to property and the severity of its violation must be considered when declaring a spatial plan invalid. There must also be a compelling and specific public interest to justify such a decision. Viimsi Municipality’s references to the value of the natural environment, traffic load, water supply and changed spatial priorities were too general and not related to the specific property or surrounding area.

In addition, the Supreme Court noted that the decline of public interest in the exercise of building rights on private land cannot constitute sufficient grounds for declaring a detailed spatial plan invalid against the owner's will. The fundamental right to property primarily serves private interests. If the owner remains interested in implementing the spatial plan and such implementation does not harm the public interest or the rights of another person, there is no need in a democratic society to prevent the implementation of the spatial plan.

Removing a detailed spatial plan from the legal framework cannot be an end in itself. It is a means that must be justified by an actual or at least probable need that is defined to some extent. Such an interference with the fundamental right to property cannot be justified by a completely unsubstantiated and merely hypothetical need for a new spatial plan.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court ruled that a detailed spatial plan cannot be invalidated on the basis of political will. The municipality’s general and superficial justifications did not outweigh the significant violation of the developer’s rights, and the Supreme Court annulled the council’s decision.