Little BIG glossary of urban planning
/ guide
Spatial and urban plans
Urban plans
Urban plans may be divided into the strategic general urban plan (GUP) and regulation plans – plan of general regulation (PGR) and plan of detailed regulation (PDR).
General urban plan - GUP
GUP – general urban plan – is the most important strategic urban plan.
GUP is adopted for all the settlements which have a town status – in total 28 towns in Serbia, and Belgrade as the capital city.
As the principal, and only urban plan which is at the same time strategic, the GUP should:
- present the vision of the long-term development of the town – in 20 or more years,
- set achievable goals and directions of development which correspond to such a vision,
- anticipate how these goals are to be met.
To be able to present viable scenarios of comprehensive and long-term development of a town and plans for their realization, the GUP must rely on other strategic plans – spatial plans (municipality, special use, Republic of Serbia) and numerous other strategies and development policies which address the territory in question.
Due to a large number of sectors, areas and interests which the GUP has to encompass, it also has to be an „umbrella agreement“ – between various experts, responsible institutions, citizens, entrepreneurs, investors and politicians. If such an agreement does not exist or is not observed, development of a town is overshadowed by individual interests or joint interests of the political and business elites, and cannot be controlled and steered in a planned manner.
The GUP covers the territory of an entire town and steers its long-term development for a period of minimum 20 years. Consequently, the GUP is directly concerned with a wide range of spatial issues which profoundly affect the quality of life in that town.
At the same time, as an urban plan, the GUP coordinates:
- various uses of the space: residence, traffic, infrastructure, economy, public services, sport, green infrastructure…
- protection of natural and man-made values of the space: environment, nature, cultural heritage.
For a GUP to be implemented as a strategic plan, it needs to be accompanied by a regulation plan – an urban plan which regulates the land for development, prescription of the location conditions necessary for obtaining the building permits, and how the plan is to be operationalized in spatial terms.
The implementation of the GUP is accomplished with the plan of general regulation – PGR.
Regulation plans - PGR i PDR
Plan of general regulation – PGR and Plan of detailed regulation – PDR are regulatory, i.e. operative urban plans.
With regulation plans, strategic decisions from the spatial plans and general urban plan (GUP) are „operationalized“ for application in a concrete space. Regulation plans provide the connection between strategic guidelines and building permits.
Plan of general regulation, PGR is the most important operative plan.
PGR is mandatory and adopted for the entire development area of all inhabited locations in Serbia with seats of the units of local government. In addition to that, PGR may be also prepared for networks – of the traffic or infrastructural system, schools, kindergartens, public garages, greenery…
Plans of detailed regulation – PDRs – are regulation plans of a lower range, but with the same operative character as the PGR.
They are prepared if the complexity of the location requires that some part of the city, settlement or block should be studied and planned in more detail.
Because of the focus on details extracted from their wider surroundings, a PDR must be in accord with the plan of general regulation of the settlement and other network plans which give an overview of wider spatial units. They are, in turn, in accord with the general urban plan and the other spatial i.e. strategic plans.
A regulation plan is focused on the land allocated for development. It determines its use and possibilities for construction directly. Location conditions for individual building lots, which are necessary for obtaining a building permit result from the regulation plan.
Regulations issued for individual lots through numerous regulation plans (PGR, PDR), cumulatively determine whether the goals, set at the level of an entire settlement (or a wider area) through the strategic plans (GUP, spatial plan), would be accomplished. For this reason it is crucial that all plans are coordinated vertically and that plans of a wider range („of a higher order“) are followed through. However, in the domestic practice, the use of individual lots and construction regulations are arbitrarily prescribed and change in an ad-hoc manner. Therefore, because of individual actions, accomplishing of strategic goals is cumulatively undermined, which negatively affects the development of entire settlements, areas, towns and regions.
Content of plans:
What constitutes the content of regulatory plans?
- Existing condition,
- Subdivision of land,
- Rules of arrangement and construction,
- Urban planning parameters, norms and balances,
- Guidelines for the implementation of the plan,
- Graphic documentation of the plan,
- Documentary basis of the plan.
Find out in detail about the content of regulatory plans, how to read and understand them, by downloading the publication (in Serbian):
