The court ordered the Chernihiv City Council to publish the General Plan of the city

The Desnyanskyi District Court of Chernihiv, by its resolution of October 1, 2015, declared the refusal of access to the materials of the General Plan of the city unlawful, and also obliged the Chernihiv City Council to provide the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights with a copy of the General Plan of the city and to post the materials of the General Plan on the website and in a publicly accessible place in the premises of the City Council.

The General Plan of the city is the most important document in the field of urban planning, which determines the development of the city for the coming decades and determines the fundamental issues of development, planning, construction and other use of the city’s territory.

The legislation establishes that the materials of the General Plan of a settlement cannot contain information with restricted access and be limited in access, and the relevant local government body must ensure the general accessibility of the general plan by posting it on its website, as well as in a publicly accessible place in the premises.

But Chernihiv has so far remained one of the few regional centers of Ukraine where urban planning documentation was completely closed to community residents. It is the inaccessibility of the General Plan of the city that causes construction scandals and provokes corruption in the field of urban planning.

For more than 2 years, representatives of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights have been trying to gain access to the materials of the General Plan of Chernihiv, force city officials to comply with the legislation, and ensure transparency of urban planning in Chernihiv.