The expiration date of a P.U.Z. varies from one Territorial Administrative Unit to another.
This term can oscillate in practice from 3 years to 10 years or until the approval date of an
urban planning documentation containing different regulations.
In the suspension procedure context of the so-called “Sector P.U.Z.s” from February 2021
(about which I have written an article available here) the issue of P.U.Z.s and their future was
an extremely important topic for real estate market. In certain cases, in order to build a
property / real estate project according to owner’s / developer’s requirements (height, built
area, etc.), the Urbanism Certificate (C.U.) requires the preparation of an urban planning
documentation called Zonal Urban Plan (P.U.Z.).
According to Guide for drawing up the P.U.Z. approved in 2000 it establishes specific
regulations for an area in urban or rural locality composed of several plots covering housing,
services, production, circulation, green spaces, public institutions, etc.
Pursuant to an Appeal in the Interest of the Law adopted in June 2021 and published at the
end of September the decision of local council to adopt a P.U.Z. constitutes a normative
administrative act.
A lesser known issue concerns the P.U.Z. term / duration of validity which we clarify in this
short article.
Thus, P.U.Z. is part of the category of spatial planning and urban planning documentation the
validity of which is established, according to the law, by local public authority whose
attribution is to approve it, depending upon the degree of complexity and purpose of
elaboration. P.U.Z.s are drawn up either upon the initiative of public administration or
another public authority, or upon the private initiative of the owner / investor / developer, the
latter being the rule in practice.
Therefore, the local public authority that has as its attribution the approval of P.U.Z. also
establishes its validity period. For instance, at the level of Bucharest Municipality the public
authority invested to approve P.U.Z.s is General Council of Bucharest Municipality, while at
local level their approval is, as a rule, within the competence of the Local Councils of
Municipalities, Cities or Communes.
Each public authority individually establishes the validity term of P.U.Z. according to the
above-mentioned legal provisions, which means that the validity term of P.U.Z. is not
uniform, but varies from one Administrative-Territorial Unit (U.A.T.) to another.
In Bucharest in 2007 the validity term of the approved P.U.Z.s was as standard 5 years. Over
time, Decisions have been issued that do not provide for validity term, and more recently
Decisions of approval stipulate that P.U.Z.s are valid until a coincident urban planning
documentation is approved that contains different regulations.
In other U.A.T.s the validity term of P.U.Z. can be 3 years (Timişoara), 4 years (Arad), 5
years (Cluj-Napoca), 10 years (Craiova) or until approval date of General Urban Plan
(P.U.G.) in case of Ploieşti.
We also underline that in accordance with the legal provisions the validity term of P.U.Z.s
extends by law in case that the investment work started during its validity period until the
completion of the project itself, to the extent that during the validity period the procedure for
authorizing the execution of construction or demolition works was started.
