Development strategies as an instrument of spatial planning

A development strategy is a strategic planning document that determines the long-term goals and priorities for the development of a territory and the mechanisms for achieving them. The foundation for such documents was laid by the Law of Ukraine “On the Principles of State Regional Policy” No. 156-VIII. Today, this system has been adapted to modern challenges: with amendments to the specialized legislation (Law No. 2389-IX), the presence of strategies has become mandatory for all territorial communities, and the new methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Restoration integrated components of restoration, safety, and an updated classification of territories into the planning process. In general, this system includes the State Strategy for Regional Development of Ukraine, regional strategies, and strategies of territorial communities. It is this system that forms the framework within which master plans, comprehensive plans for spatial development, and other urban planning documentation are subsequently developed.

Three levels of strategies

The State Strategy for Regional Development of Ukraine is developed for seven years and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. It identifies trends and major problems in the socio-economic development of regions, policy priorities, functional zones of territories, and a monitoring system. To avoid a gap between planning periods, the preparation of a new strategy begins no later than eighteen months before the expiration of the current one, and it is approved no later than six months before.

Regional development strategies are developed for the duration of the state strategy and approved by regional councils (as well as the Kyiv and Sevastopol city councils and the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea). The law expressly requires their consistency with strategic goals at the state level, because these are not isolated, but mutually complementary documents.

The next level is the development strategies of territorial communities. They are approved by local councils and developed by executive bodies, taking into account the priorities of the State and corresponding regional strategies. Implementation takes place through a separate action plan, which is also approved by the council.

Connection with urban planning documentation

The general principle of consistency between strategic and spatial planning is laid down in Law No. 156-VIII, but the practical mechanism of this connection is dictated by specialized urban planning legislation. Law No. 711-IX, which introduced new approaches to spatial planning and comprehensive plans for the entire territory of the community, as well as the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 926 finally synchronized these processes: the development of local urban planning documentation now directly relies on the approved strategy of the community.

In practice, this means that spatial decisions are not limited to basic zoning and do not arise arbitrarily. They must instrumentally embody the goals of the strategy, taking into account direct operational spatial consequences. For example, if the strategy defines attracting investments into new production as a priority, the comprehensive or master plan should not only allocate a site, but also provide for the necessary capacity of engineering networks, expansion of transport corridors, and compliance with sanitary protection zones. If the goal is the return of the population, urban planning documentation quickly responds by calculating the capacity of schools, clinics, and shelters, planning public spaces and mobility routes. That is, the strategy sets the vector, and spatial planning calculates the real load on the territory, preventing infrastructural collapses.

Why exactly such a sequence

The logic of the legislation builds a clear hierarchy: first, long-term socio-economic goals are determined, and then spatial decisions that physically embody them on the territory. Without such a sequence, documentation runs the risk of turning into a set of technical drawings divorced from the real needs of the community — for example, when lands that the strategy considers as nature conservation or agricultural are given for development.

This connection is reinforced by the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Since development strategies belong to state planning documents, their SEA is mandatory. Even at the stage of goal formation, the community assesses the potential impact of decisions on the environment and public health. Therefore, it is the strategy that lays the primary environmental safeguards (for example, the preservation of forests or water resources), which are subsequently detailed in the master or comprehensive plan.

What does this mean in practice

For a local self-government body, the current development strategy determines the logic and justification of planning decisions. It provides a reasoned approach to functional zoning, determining the expediency and spatial distribution of industrial, residential, infrastructural, and recreational areas.

In addition, consistency with the development strategy is a critical condition for attracting funding. This applies both to state funds (in particular, from the State Fund for Regional Development) and grants from international donors. International partners evaluate infrastructure and recovery projects exclusively through the prism of their compliance with the approved development strategy of the territorial community, because this is the only way to guarantee the systematic nature and expediency of investments.