The Äripäev Real Estate Conference on 22 February hosted a panel discussion on the detailed planning procedure entitled ‘Three cities, three practices and perspectives. How can we achieve fast planning and fast development?’. Tallinn Deputy Mayor Madle Lippus, Pärnu Deputy Mayor Silver Smeljanski, and Tartu City Architect Jiri Tintera participated in the panel. Janar Muttik, founder and CEO of Everaus Kinnisvara, moderated the panel.
Janar Muttik pointed out that in 2023, 23 detailed plans were initiated in Tallinn, but only nine were approved. At the same time, seven detailed plans were initiated in Tartu and ten were approved, and 27 were initiated in Pärnu and 24 were approved. The Deputy Mayor of Tallinn, Madle Lippus, has stated that the city is currently reviewing its detailed planning procedure. Some detailed plans currently take more than ten years to process. The aim is to reduce this timeframe to three years within the next few years. As a positive, Lippus noted that new detailed plans are now easier to initiate, and processing time for building permits has been reduced by 50%.
In both Pärnu and Tartu, the average processing time for detailed plans is several times shorter than in Tallinn and remains within two years. Both cities’ representatives say that an up-to-date comprehensive plan and a designated person in charge of the procedure for each detailed plan support a speedy procedure. According to Silver Smeljanski, the Deputy Mayor of Pärnu, the fast pace of procedures in Pärnu can be attributed to the city’s view of the entire process as customer service. There are no separate agencies, and detailed planning is handled by various departments within the same agency. Lippus added that Tallinn also aims to move from a processing authority to a customer-focused authority, ensuring that each procedure has a specific person in charge and that the developer can get all the answers in one place.
The panel stresses that a fast-track detailed planning procedure requires cooperation and input from the developer. Jiri Tintera, the City Architect of Tartu, says that changing developer ideas and unclear projects are the main reasons for delays in detailed planning. It has become more common in recent years for planners to submit incomplete plans to city governments and wait for the cities to complete them. Such situations complicate the procedure, so fast approval of a detailed plan requires a sound business idea and a competent project team.
Watch the summary of the panel discussion in the video below.
Äripäev Real Estate Conference produced the video. The panel discussion was summarised and the recording edited by Everaus Kinnisvara.
Photo: Marko Mumm
