Imbalance of Strategic and Spatial Development Planning Documents and Directions for Their Harmonization

Modern challenges caused by russia’s full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine and Ukraine’s obtaining the status of a candidate for EU membership require the elaboration / revision and coordination of documents that regularize and regulate strategic and spatial planning in the State at all levels. The issue of formation of strategic and spatial planning documents is especially relevant for local self-government bodies of territorial communities. On the one hand, due to the insufficient number of specialists in strategic and spatial planning during the wartime and the high cost of developing such documents, and on the other hand, due to the vertical and horizontal imbalance (inconsistency) of strategic and spatial planning documents. The aim of the presented study is to determine the directions of coordination of strategic and spatial planning documents for the development of territorial communities on the basis of identifying gaps and shortcomings in the system of strategic and spatial planning in Ukraine. The study focuses on the theoretical and applied aspects of considering the problem of harmonization of strategic and spatial planning in Ukraine. The theoretical component is concentrated around the approach to strategic and spatial planning. In particular, the «top-down» approach to strategic and spatial planning in Ukraine is characterized and critically evaluated. It is noted that in the conditions of wartime and post-war recovery, it is fully justified to prevent the increase in differentiation in the development of territorial communities in different regions of the country and the negative impact of the armed aggression of the russian federation on them. Applied aspects of the study are related to the identification of gaps in the systems of strategic and spatial planning in Ukraine. In particular, special attention is paid to the vertical and horizontal coordination of two key documents to be developed by local self-government bodies of territorial communities – the strategy for the development of the territorial community (strategic planning document) and a comprehensive plan for the spatial development of the territory of the territorial community (spatial planning document). Based on the results of the study, amendments to the legislation related to the vertical and horizontal coordination of strategic and spatial planning documents in order to preserve the integrity of the State regional policy in Ukraine with the simultaneous opening of opportunities for local self-government bodies to form effective, rather than formal documents for the strategic and spatial development of territorial communities are proposed.