Draft bill #8263 of December 5, 2022
Sponsor: the President of Ukraine
Status: adopted, awaits to be signed by the President
Who is affected: residents of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, and local government bodies
Summary of the draft bill:
- the following definitions are introduced:
- a town is a populated area with predominantly high-density development and a population of at least 10,000 inhabitants
- a township is a populated area with predominantly suburban development and a population of over 5,000 inhabitants. Localities with a population of less than 5,000 inhabitants are villages
- places of compact residence outside populated areas that do not have a stable population will be defined as settlements
- establishment, dissolution, and reclassification of localities will take into account historical, geographical, social, economic, natural, environmental, ethnic, and cultural aspects, the quality and availability of administrative services, the efficiency of governance, demographics, transportation accessibility, consequences of natural disasters, man-made accidents, and military situation
- the Verkhovna Rada will have the power to establish and dissolve raions, change their boundaries, and designate their administrative centers
- it will be allowed to dissolve a locality if three years have passed since its last resident officially unregistered or if it has been incorporated into another locality
- townships will be reclassified as towns and vice versa by the Verkhovna Rada at the request of the Cabinet of Ministers. Townships will be reclassified as villages and vice versa by unilateral decisions of the Cabinet
What is right:
- the bill is in line with the constitutional requirement for the territorial organization to be regulated by laws and not by secondary legislation as is the case at the moment
- the bill clearly defines the procedure and grounds for the establishment and dissolution of raions and reclassification of localities.
What is wrong:
- strict dependence on population size for determining the status of a locality is unreasonable:
- many localities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants have been towns for centuries. Their reclassification as townships would be unjustified and unsubstantiated
- many localities will lose their town status due to the sharp population decline caused by war. However, their inhabitants continue leading an urban lifestyle
- to define a township as a populated area with predominantly suburban development is incorrect. Many localities currently classified as urban-type townships have high-density and not suburban development. They will fall under a township definition only because of their population size
- there is an internal inconsistency in the bill: provisions regarding the definitions of town, township, and village, which for the classification of localities use only population size and type of development, contradict the provision that “historical, geographical, social, economic, natural, environmental, ethnic, and cultural aspects,” among others, must also be considered
- quality and availability of administrative services, the efficiency of governance, demographics, transportation accessibility, consequences of natural disasters, man-made accidents, and the military situation cannot be used as criteria since they can change quickly
- the bill does not cover the issue of changing the administrative centers of the oblasts, which is a pressing issue considering the prolonged temporary occupation of the administrative centers of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Alternative solution:
- to veto the law
- abandon the idea to use population size as a key criterion for classifying localities
- instead, use a complex approach taking into account population size, type of development, predominant economic activities, and history of the locality to determine its status.