The General Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources ("MNR") has recently distributed the Circular on Strengthening the Supervision and Administration of Spatial Planning for National Land (the "Circular").
The Circular sets out requirements in four respects, including standardizing the examination and approval process for the preparation of plans, tightening the planning licensing, ensuring the life-circle management of plans, and intensifying the management of officials. According to the Circular, the principle of planning first and construction next must be observed. The document of opinions on preliminary examination and site selection for land use needed by construction projects, the construction land planning license, the construction project planning license, and the rural construction planning license should be issued in strict accordance with the spatial planning for national land. Without the planning licenses, construction of a new project, and reconstruction or expansion of an existing project will be disallowed. Additionally, the attempt to steer around the licensing requirement in a special circumstance, by employing other non-statutory methods, such as having collective discussions or convening a meeting to make a collective decision, instead of fulfilling the planning licensing requirement, will be banned. Meanwhile, the Circular states that launching non-agricultural construction and occupying arable land to construct houses without approval, under the cover of the circulation of farming land or land reclamation, which goes against the planning, will be strictly prohibited, and the situation in which collective land is unregulated or out of control will be resolutely eradicated. Furthermore, the Circular underscores the need to strictly prohibit the spouses, and children as well as their spouses, of civil servants in key positions with power for planning, from doing business and establishing enterprises in areas directly associated with planning.