Summary

Although the content of design specifications is largely similar to that of the detailed plan, it has received much less attention in legal literature and, until recent years, also in case law, compared to the detailed plan. Part of the reason for this is probably due to the fact that in earlier building and planning legislation, design specifications were covered quite briefly and were left to be determined by a building regulation adopted by local governments. As a result, the rules on the content and processing of design specifications were not uniform and failed to sufficiently balance the interests of applicants for design specifications and those affected by the proposed construction activity. The Supreme Court stated already in its judgment of 4 May 2006 that the content of the design specifications, i.e., what can be regulated by them, should be laid down by law, at least at a general level. The building and planning legislation that entered into force on 1 July 2015 regulates design specifications much more thoroughly, having also been the subject of considerable case law to date. The article looks at key aspects of design specifications in both past and current legislation, and in case law, in order to provide a concise overview.