Urban Land Use Regulation In Serbia: An Analysis Of Its Effects On Property Rights

Abstract

The paper provides a systematic, qualitative and critical analysis of the regulatory framework in the management, planning and use of urban construction land in Serbia and its effects on property rights. It explores and highlights – in current domestic research in the field of spatial planning – the insufficiently investigated aspects of the impact of urban land use regulation on urban land property rights. In the period after the Second World War, parallel with a variety of changes in urban land regulations, property rights regarding urban land in Serbia were accompanied by redistributions and transformations, supported by different legal measures (confiscation, nationalization, expropriation etc.). Recent changes, typical for the post-socialist transition period, have caused a new transformation in property rights and relate to the reattribution/redefinition of property rights, and the privatization and restitution of urban construction land. Taking into account the socio-historical and contemporary social context, in terms of the facts, the paper presents changes in property rights regimes concerning urban construction land that were created under the influence of various urban construction land regulations, with a pronounced regulatory role of spatial and urban planning. The starting observation that land use regulations affect property rights on land is examined and confirmed. The results of this analysis present a framework for urban land use regulations that affect property rights on urban land in Serbia.