UNECE Releases Urban Cadastre Paper on Cadastral Boundaries in Ukraine
The UN4UkrainianCities project is pleased to announce the release of a new paper titled "Defining Cadastral Boundaries of Sub-National Administrative Units: Ukrainian Challenges and International Practice". This is the first paper in our Urban Cadastre series, with additional releases planned for later this year.
The paper examines the challenges Ukraine faces in establishing and registering cadastral boundaries for its sub-national administrative units following recent reforms. It provides an overview of Ukraine's current normative base and practical challenges, as well as insights from international experiences in countries like Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States.
Key findings include:
Only 37% of settlements, 3% of territorial communities, and no rayons (districts) or oblasts (regions) in Ukraine have officially registered boundary lines in the Land Cadastre.
At the current pace, it would take over 30 years and cost approximately €18.5 million to register boundaries for all territorial communities.
Major challenges include imprecise historical boundaries, boundary conflicts between local governments, and limited technical and financial resources.
The paper offers three main recommendations to address these issues:
Identify a default set of administrative boundaries, potentially based on existing index-cadastral maps.
Enforce and register the default set at the national level, while allowing local governments to initiate adjustments when necessary.
Consider establishing a committee to facilitate out-of-court boundary conflict resolution and cross-border collaboration among municipalities.
These recommendations aim to bring cost-effectiveness to the boundary setting process while recognizing the political sensitivity of such decisions. The paper emphasizes the importance of open public engagement and clear communication in implementing any reforms.