Pooling of surface areas and compensation measures

Impact regulation under nature protection law as an instrument of nature protection policy at the local and regional level

Personnel

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Köck
Dr. Randi Thum

External Partners:
Prof. Dr. Rainer Wolf, TU Bergakademie Freiberg;
Dipl.-Geogr. Sonja Macke, Universität Bonn

Status

Budget

Duration

02/2003 − 01/2006

Outline

The German Impact regulation under nature protection law is in practice the most important regulation of German nature protection law due to its overall approach, which is not confined to the protection of single parts of landscape. Through several legal changes in planning law since the beginning of the Nineties, the strong linkage between impact and compensation became more flexible and the local authority was established as the leading actor. Moreover the legal preconditions for pooling and stocking of surface areas and measures for compensation were accomplished and led to the development of management systems at the local and regional level.

These pooling concepts contain chances and risks for nature protection. They open the possibility for a more professional and coordinated compensation for impacts and widen the search space for compensation area, with the result that the impact regulation can be used as an instrument to fulfil local and regional aims of nature protection policy. But the new flexibility includes risks too. The stocking of compensation measures can lead to the result that municipalities try to finance all kinds of nature protection measures through impact regulation.

Aims of the project are:

  • to observe and force the discussion about legal problems of pooling of surface areas and compensation measures and answer open questions,
  • to analyze the effects of the more flexible impact regulation in practice and find out how the changes influence the implementation of the impact regulation and local and regional nature conservation activities,
  • to analyze examples for pools with regard to tasks, institutional structure and mode of operation,
  • to study the role of local and regional planning for the implementation of the impact regulation and chances of planning law to influence the compensation,
  • to analyze the connections between impact regulation under nature protection law and land-resource-policy and/or soil protection policy.

Publications

W. Köck, Die städtebauliche Eingriffsregelung. Ausgewählte Probleme unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Auswahl und Sicherung von Ausgleichsflächen und -maßnahmen, in: Natur und Recht 26 (2004), S. 1-6. (56.2 KB)
R. Wolf, Entwicklungslinien der Eingriffsregelung, in: Natur und Recht 26 (2004), S. 6-11. (37.5 KB)

R. Thum, Rechtsprechungs-Report: Bauplanerische Eingriffsregelung, in: Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht, 15 (2004), S. 278-286.

R. Thum, Abschied vom "funktionellen Zusammenhang" zwischen Eingriffen in Natur und Landschaft und ihrer Kompensation im Rahmen der Bauleitplanung?, in: Zeitschrift für Umwelt- und Planungsrecht 16 (2005), S. 63-67.

Köck/ Thum/ Wolf, Praxis und Perspektiven der Eingriffsregelung, Baden-Baden 2005; ISBN 3-8329-1578-8

R. Thum, Die Kontrolle der Durchführung der Eingriffsregelung, in: Köck /Thum / Wolf, Praxis und Perspektiven der Eingriffsregelung, S. 26-41.

R. Thum, Die Eingriffsregelung zur Verminderung des Flächenverbrauchs, in: Natur und Recht 27 (2005), S. 762-768.

R. Thum, Chancen und Risiken von Flächenbevorratung und Ökokonto: Ein Praxistest, Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, 2006, 289-296.

Project-oriented events

Workshop Eingriffsregelung und Kompensationsflächenmanagement, 15./16. May 2003, UFZ in Leipzig

Conference "Praxis und Perspektiven der Eingriffsregelung", 1./ 2. July 2004, UFZ in Leipzig (40 KB)