The detailed plan approved by the Vilnius municipality, according to which it is planned to build Mykolos Lietuvios street, is legal, the court finally decided.
Last Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (LVAT) rejected the complaint of the community of residents of the Visoriau Valley, which opposed this plan, and upheld the decision of the Vilnius District Administrative Court last June.
"The court of first instance properly (...) determined the legally significant circumstances for resolving the case. (…) The arguments of the applicant's appeal do not refute the conclusion of the court of first instance regarding the validity and legality of the order", the LVAT ruling reads.
The community of residents of the Visoriau valley asked the court to annul the May 2020 decision of the Vilnius Municipality regarding the approval of the detailed plan of the 26,2-hectare territory for the construction of Mykolos Lietuvios Street. The community argued that the decision is illegal because its decisions do not provide an objective and comprehensive assessment of the impact of noise and air pollution.
"The impact of the detailed plan's decisions on the health of the population and the territory must be assessed taking into account (...) the fact that Mykolo Lietuvio street will directly connect with the western bypass of the city of Vilnius, will serve as a connecting street between (...) the bypass, the Ukmergė highway and the Molėtai highway entrance - Geležinio vilkos streets," the community told the court.
During the preparation of the street plan, two alternatives were evaluated, one of them - decisions approved by the detailed plan, according to which, according to the community's assessment, the communication infrastructure is unsafe. According to the second alternative presented by the community, it is proposed to move the street away from the boundaries of the residents' plots.
At that time, the municipal administration claimed that the State Territorial Planning and construction inspection In April 2020, it approved the submission to approve the detailed plan, so it had no reason not to approve it.
In the complaint to LVAT, the community also claimed that the municipality's decision was made without assessing the impact of the new selection and without assessing the impact of the planned street construction on the environment.
The municipality stated that the most accurate assessment of the impact of air pollution and noise will be possible during the preparation of the construction project and the fine-tuning of the organization of traffic on the future street.
In June 2021, the Vilnius District Administrative Court assessed that the detailed plan complies with legal acts. The court also agreed with the municipality's position that an environmental impact assessment will be mandatory before issuing a street construction permit, and for this a technical project will have to be prepared, which will decide on measures to reduce environmental impact.
The chief architect of the city of Vilnius, Mindaugas Pakalnis, has told BNS that after the construction of the Vilnius Western Bypass, connections in the east-west direction are necessary - Mykolos Lietuvios and Šiaurine streets, which would perform the function of main roads.
