Species and site protection in planning

There is still a great lack of clarity in practice of how the provisions for site and species protection under European law can be adequately fulfilled at higher planning levels as, due to a lack of detailed data, the planning areas are often very large. The project will take a more detailed look at the different planning categories and their binding effects (suitable, priority and restricted areas, binding effect of federal sectoral planning in accordance with Section 15 of Grid Expansion Acceleration Act (NABEG)). The importance of standardised methods produced by expert agreements is increasing steadily in the planning of renewable energies and the expansion of the grid. In a three-stage process, the project will examine which data bases should be used at higher planning levels and to what extent site surveys are required and what methods these should use. It will also be ascertained which aspects of the testing programme should be considered or differentiated at which planning and approval levels, and how the requirements for the exemption test can be met at the higher level.

Methods

• Analysing existing guidelines and case law on the legal review of species and site protection at higher planning levels.
• Analysing case studies (regional plans, regional planning procedure for projects related to grid expansion, regional planning procedures/route determination procedures for roads)
• Analysing the planning system: deriving planning categories taking account of scale levels and the degree of specification as well as the binding nature of the planning categories
• Developing specific guidelines for the legal review of species and site protection at the level of regional planning, federal sectoral planning and the regional planning procedures/route determination procedures for roads, based on analyses, description and verification by means of case studies
• Presenting the transferability of the approaches developed to other planning categories