41

RIGHTS TO LAND PARCELS AND WATER OBJECTS

FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONSTRUCTION AND EXPLOITATION

OF LINEAR INFRASTRUCTURES IN FRAMEWORK OF

THE RUSSIAN LEGISLATION

I. Kalinin

Introduction 2

1. Granting rights to land parcels in accordance with Russia land legislation 4

1.1. Right of ownership to land parcels and lease of land parcels 4

1.2. Rights of restrained use of land parcels (land servitudes) 12

2. Granting rights to land parcels of other categories 23

2.1. Granting rights to land parcels of forest stock 23

2.2. Granting rights to lands of water reserves and water objects 27

2.3. Granting of rights to land parcels of lands of settlements 32

3. Material losses of owners of linear infrastructure constructions, associated with granting land parcels for use 33

4. Spatial boundaries of land parcels granted for linear infrastructure construction 35

Normative legal acts 37

Introduction

The extension of linear infrastructures in Russia is great. Suffice it to say that the distance, for which only the main transmission pipelines are stretching, is more than 217 thousand km. The extension of Russian railways is more than 87 thousand km, and of high voltage El-transmission lines, belonging only to RJSC "UES Russia" is almost 44 million km. Nevertheless, in spite of continuous improvement to the Russian legislation in the recent years, many issues, associated with the rights to land parcels of linear infrastructure owners, have not been resolved so far¹. At the same time, the Russian legislation requires that the owners of real estate property, situated on land parcels, should choose before January 1, 2006 one or another right to the land parcel, on which the real estate property is located.

Russian land legislation envisions six types of rights to land parcels: 1) land title; 2) right of continuous (perpetual) use; 3) right of gratuitous free use; 4) right of restrained use (servitude); 5) lease; 6) right of hereditary life tenure.

Only citizens own land parcels, based on the right of lifelong hereditary tenure.

Land parcels are granted, at the present time, only to the state and municipal institutions, to federal official enterprises as well as to bodies of state power and local self-government on the basis of the right of continuous (perpetual) use. The right of continuous (perpetual) use to land parcels, being in state or municipal ownership, if it was originated to citizens and juridical persons before the Land Code of RF (further - LC RF) came into power, retains to them. However, they cannot do anything with these land parcels.

The right of gratuitous fixed-date use of land parcels can emerge in two cases². Firstly, if the lands are in the state or municipal ownership, they can be transferred, based on this right, only to state and municipal institutions, to federal official enterprises as well as to bodies of state power and local self-government. Secondly, if the lands are in ownership of citizens or juridical persons, they can be transferred, based on this right, to other citizens or juridical persons.

Land parcel can be granted to the interested person for use, based on one or another right, not only from the land of reserve (i.e., not granted to juridical or physical persons). Land Code allows the possibility of its withdrawal from another owner, in this case by redemption, for state or municipal needs. In this case, the possibility of forced requisitioning in many respects depends on the category of lands.

Therefore, for the purposes of the present report only three types of rights to land parcels are of the practical interest to private corporations, main objective of which is to get profit. This is the right of property, lease and servitude. Besides, the possibility of granting land parcel, based on one of the listed rights, in case if it is necessary to withdraw the land parcel from citizen or juridical person, is being considered.

One should take into consideration that pipelines can pass not only on industrial lands, but also on forestry lands or within the limits of water objects. This stipulated the necessity of analysis of forestry and water legislation besides land. Civil legislation is applied in the extent, in which it doesn't contradict to the requirements of land, water and forestry legislation.

Underground, as well as ground pipelines, have been laid out in Russia. This required not only accounting the differences of legal regulation of the corresponding relations, but also use of norms of mining legislation. Besides, the differentiation between registration of rights to land parcels, already occupied by pipelines, and parcels, on which their construction is only planned, has been taken into account.