Illegal kiosks and illegal parking lots. The Verkhovna Rada proposes to regulate this business sector

Soon, the Parliament will consider a new bill aimed at streamlining the rules for the placement of kiosks and parking lots in Ukraine and the conditions for obtaining permits for them. The relevant draft law, No. 10308, was registered in the Verkhovna Rada at the end of December 2023.

As in the previous version of the document, draft law No. 9233, which was rejected by the parliament last summer, lawmakers propose measures to ease the working conditions for small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, the new version more clearly defines the rules for operating kiosks and parking lots and obtaining permits for their placement, with an emphasis on equal conditions for all entrepreneurs and maximum transparency of the process.

This was announced by Olena Shulyak, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning.

"We have taken into account all the comments and resolved all the inconsistencies that were in No. 9233. Therefore, the new draft law should help, on the one hand, to prevent convenient schemes of local authorities' profiteering, and, on the other hand, to guarantee equal working conditions and transparency of the permit obtaining process to entrepreneurs doing business in kiosks and small shops across the country," said the MP.

What does the draft law propose?

Simplification and regulation of issues and procedures related to the placement of kiosks and paid parking lots. Establishment of a transparent, legally defined procedure for the placement of kiosks and parking lots on state and municipal land plots through competitive online auctions. Based on the results of electronic bidding, the highest bidder will be granted the right to locate such facilities. This will make the processes competitive and eliminate corruption risks.

Introduction of transparent and competitive mechanisms for business entities to obtain the right to place kiosks and parking lots.

The draft law also proposes to amend the Land Code of Ukraine to make the rules for using state and municipal land clearer. In particular, this concerns the same rules for concluding agreements on the use of land for the placement of kiosks and parking lots. This will eliminate the misunderstandings that have arisen at different levels of government bylaws and regional acts of local governments.

According to Olena Shulyak, it is primarily about creating a single clear procedure: local governments determine specific locations for kiosks and parking lots, this scheme is published in the public domain, and then interested entrepreneurs can participate in an electronic auction. As the practice of land auctions has shown, this is an effective and transparent mechanism for all participants, Shulyak said. Moreover, the public will be able to control where legal kiosks and parking lots are located and where they are not. In addition, a procedure for dismantling the latter is envisaged.

What is fundamentally new in this version of the draft law is the holding of auctions for the right to a land easement, which is the right of a land user to use someone else's land plot for a limited paid or free of charge. This means that the temporary structure will be tied to the land plot on the basis of this right, and not through a passport of attachment, as it was before and as proposed in the previous version of the draft law.

"The easement right is better integrated into the approach of sustainable community development and land legislation. And for business, the advantage is that this agreement has greater legal force than the passport of attachment, which did not fully protect the business - even after the temporary structure was placed, the law provided for the possibility of removing it," Shulyak explained.