Administrative barriers are one of the key factors slowing down the entry of new housing into the market, said Yevhen Favorov, head of the Ukrainian Association of Developers, during a roundtable discussion.
According to him, the government has now become one of the key drivers of housing demand in Ukraine: programs offering subsidized mortgages, compensation for destroyed housing, programs for military personnel, and other government initiatives are generating significant effective demand. However, the market cannot respond to demand immediately, since by the time a building is commissioned, 80–90% of the most liquid apartments have usually already been sold.
“If the government wants to secure additional housing stock for its programs, it will take time—at least 2–4 years, a significant portion of which is devoted to the administrative preparation of the project,” Favorov noted.
According to him, the association he heads conducted its first annual industry survey of developers, in which 120 respondents participated—owners, executives, and specialists from development companies, who collectively account for one-third of the total supply in the primary residential construction market. According to the survey results, the average duration of administrative project preparation—from land registration to obtaining a construction permit—is approximately 14.4 months; land rights registration takes 13.3 months; and obtaining urban planning conditions and restrictions (UPC) takes an additional 9.78 months.
Respondents cited problems with obtaining UCRs (35%), difficulties in the area of land and property relations (30%), instability of permits and their revocation (24%), difficulties in obtaining technical specifications (22%), as well as constant changes to rules, requirements, and legislation (20%).
Among the procedures that, according to developers, most need optimization at the state level, the top priorities are cultural heritage protection (49%), cadastral and land procedures (29%), access to urban planning information (28%), and digital services and registries (26%).
During the discussion, Olena Shulyak, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on the Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development, and Urban Planning, emphasized that the problem with administrative permits is much deeper than simply a matter of administration or the speed of document issuance.
“Urban planning permits have effectively become a quasi-licensing tool that creates corruption risks, reinforces the monopoly of local authorities, and in some cases places developers in a dependent position,” Shulyak believes.
At the same time, she believes a systemic solution to this problem is impossible without up-to-date urban planning documentation—digitized and made public at the national level—so that the market has access to clear and transparent rules. The MP also called for a resolution to be submitted to the government as soon as possible, one that establishes a mechanism to address unjustified refusals by local authorities to issue building permits and empowers the State Architecture and Urban Planning Inspectorate (DIAM) to act as an arbitrator in such situations.
Oleksandr Novytskyi, Head of the State Architecture and Urban Planning Inspectorate (DIAM), added that the set of technical specifications and utility connections requires separate reengineering—with a transition to a unified digital process and a “single window” for the client.
Market representatives, in turn, confirmed that the absence or long-standing rejection of urban planning documentation has not only regulatory but also direct economic consequences: land plots are not being developed, investments are being postponed, and housing supply is not reaching the market in the necessary volume.
The survey results will serve as the basis for the association’s future advocacy work in collaboration with the government and the professional community.
