AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.12.2004, Side 13

Ljósmynd f Umhverfisráðuneytið,
höfundur: Ragnar Th. Sigurðsson
Sigríöur Anna Þóröardóttir, Ministér óf Kie Ei
1 Jm fmuVTiTjm flpief^si
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Planning issues are very important
for the general public and business-
es and we all have an opinion in one
way or another as to how our near
environment should be planned.
It is therefore very important dur-
ing the planning process that the
opinions of the citizens and other
interested bodies are heard and
that they use their right to voice an
opinion. One could say that during
the preparation of plans there is a
dialog between the local authorities,
the public and other interested bod-
ies about the environment that we
would like to live in.
With the approval of the present
planning- and building law no.
73/1997 a considerable change
was made to the planning system in
lceland. With the passing of this law
the responsibility for the making of
plans was moved to a large extent
from the state to the local authorities
and the State Planning Board done
away with. Three types of plans
were defined: regional plan, mas-
ter plan and detail plan and it was
also decided that plans should be
drawn up for the whole of lceland.
In this way all local authorities were
required to have completed master
plans for all areas within their juris-
diction before the end of 2008. With
this law a new goal for the planning
process was defined i.e. to contrib-
ute to sustainable development. A
special planning jurisdiction cover-
ing the central area of lceland was
also defined and the responsibility
for planning this area given to a
special committee, the Collaboration
Committee for the Central Highlands
(samvinnunefnd miðhálendisins).
The Ministry for the Environment is
now working on a total review of the
planning- and building law in light of
experience gained from its execu-
tion and new attitudes towards the
making of plans and development
control. Two committees are now
working on this review and have
been charged with the task of pro-
posing what should be the respec-
tive future role of the state and the
local authorities in planning, particu-
larly with regard to the formulation
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