The City Council of Semenivka in Chernihiv Oblast was forced to publish the General Plan

In compliance with the decision of the Desnyanskyi District Court of Chernihiv, the Semeniv City Council of Chernihiv Oblast posted the General Plan on its official website.

In compliance with the decision of the Desnyanskyi District Court of Chernihiv, the Semeniv City Council of Chernihiv Oblast posted the General Plan on its official website.

, that in the summer of this year, the specified local government body refused to provide an urban planning document for review upon an information request from the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights. The city council officials explained the denial of access by the presence of official information in the General Plan.

Public activists appealed the actions of city council officials in court. Having considered the case, the Desnyanskyi District Court of Chernihiv ordered the local government to make the document open to citizens. However, the city council began to implement the court decision only after the initiation of compulsory enforcement proceedings. In its order, the state enforcement service obliged the local government to post the General Plan on the official website and in an accessible building of the city council by the end of August 2014. The city council was also to provide a copy of the document to representatives of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

The local government has only now begun to implement the executive service’s order.

“I am pleased that, although under duress, the city council has begun to implement the court decision. However, they are implementing it poorly. The General Plan was uploaded to the city council’s website in one archive, which “weighs” as much as 500 megabytes. In small towns where there are problems with high-quality Internet, it is impossible to download such an archive. Despite the executive service’s decision, we have not yet been provided with a copy of the General Plan… However, I hope that we will receive this document in the near future. We also plan to visit the city council to check whether the General Plan is accessible in its premises,” comments Viktor Tarasov, head of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, on the progress of the court decision.

The city council’s responses regarding the accessibility of the General Plan of the city of Semenivka, Chernihiv region, can be found here.

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The Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights carries out activities aimed at ensuring the accessibility of general plans for citizens together with


within


with the support


(UNDP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.