Mykolo Lietuvo Street, between the Bajori and Verkii districts of the capital, will remain only in the municipality's plans for a long time. This week, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania rejected the municipality's appeal and upheld the favorable decision for the community of residents of Visorių, so the impact of the planned street on the environment will have to be re-evaluated.
The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (LVAT) examined the administrative case in an appellate procedure based on the dispute initiated by the association "Visorių slėniso dēkusų kommunų" (Community) regarding the possibilities of the planned construction of Mykolo Lietuvio Street in Vilnius.
The Community appealed to the court defending its interest in a healthy and safe environment. In the complaint submitted to the court, it was claimed that the impact of noise on public health was incorrectly assessed in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, because after performing an acoustic noise assessment commissioned by the Community, it was determined that the noise caused by the prospective traffic flow in the vicinity of residential buildings would exceed the limit norms at all times of the day. Also, the applicants claimed in the complaint that heavy vehicle traffic will be allowed on the designed street, but when performing calculations of traffic intensity, noise, and air pollution, data on heavy vehicles were not evaluated.
The court of first instance, having taken into account the fact that when making the contested decision, the fact that the movement of heavy vehicles is allowed on this street, and the design speed is 70 km/h, and not 50 km/h, as was assessed during the EIA calculations, was not assessed, decided, that the evidence collected by the applicant and submitted to the file allows to state that the noise limits will be exceeded at the site of the planned activity, and the calculations of air pollution and traffic intensity also do not reflect the actual situation at the site of the planned activity. The court of first instance annulled the decision of the Environmental Protection Agency and ordered a re-examination of the environmental impact assessment report of the planned construction of Mykolos Lietuvio Street in Vilnius, requiring the planning organizer to submit street noise and air pollution calculations for the B1 (main city street) category street in the Construction Technical Regulation "Streets and roads of local significance. "General requirements" parameters and depending on the obtained results after obtaining the conclusions of repeated EIA subjects, decide on the adequacy of the noise reduction measures selected in the EIA report, ensuring that the noise limit values are not exceeded, as well as on the permissibility of the planned economic activity according to the first and (or) second activity alternatives.
The panel of LVAT judges, which examined the defendant's Environmental Protection Agency and the third interested party Vilnius city municipalities the administration's appeals, recognized the decision of the court of first instance as legal and reasonable, and rejected the appeals.
In the appeal, the defendant Environmental Protection Agency asserted that according to the decisions of the territorial planning documents, the planned Mykolos Lietuvios street does not have heavy vehicle traffic, therefore the EIA should not be carried out after taking into account the technical requirements for the design speed of the street and evaluating the heavy vehicle traffic. Rejecting this argument, LVAT noted that in the general plan of the city of Vilnius, solutions for the development of the communication network and in the scheme of the boundaries (red lines) of the streets of categories A, B, C of the territory of the municipality of Vilnius, the category of Mykolos Lietuvios street is provided for B1, where the possible speed is 70 km/h and is allowed heavy traffic. The panel of judges of the appellate court noted that the case does not contain any data confirming that the organizer of the planned economic activity (Vilnius City Municipality Administration) has made legally binding decisions regarding the expected heavy vehicle traffic and speed restrictions on the planned street, therefore the applicant justifiably seeks, so that the noise and pollution generated by traffic at the permitted speeds typical of this category of street is evaluated in the EIA report.
Rejecting the argument of the Vilnius City Municipality Administration's appeal that the case is exclusively defending a private interest, the LVAT panel of judges noted that the Community can be considered an interested society, which may be affected by decisions, actions or inaction in the field of EIA assessment, and which in the case defends its interest in a healthy and safe the environment. In the case in question, its interest cannot be opposed to the public interest in having better communication in the city, better quality transport infrastructure. The LVAT decree indicates that the public (public) interest must be realized by finding a balance of interests, which means that adequate measures must be provided to protect the rights of the interested public to a suitable quality of life, which is required by the EIA objectives provided for in Article 4 of the Law on the Assessment of the Impact of Planned Economic Activities on the Environment.
Information of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania
