At the beginning of September 2016 Lviv Regional State Administration submitted a draft Perspective plan to the Lviv Regional Council, which provides for the creation of 85 unified communities. This new plan was submitted as an amendment to the previous Perspective plan, approved in 2015, and provides for the changes in 17 districts and the city of Lviv (no changes are expected only in Busk, Zolochiv, Kamjanka-Buska districts). In 16 already existing unified communities no territorial changes are anticipated.
According to the draft Lviv region Perspective plan there should be created:
- 40 urban communities (new communities should be created in every city of Lviv region, except for Dubliany, Sosnivka, Stebnyk and Uhnev);
- 1 town communities (out of 34 existing towns);
- 24 rural communities.
The draft Plan, however, does not take into account the newly created unified rural communities: Davydivska (Pustomyty district) and Nezhuhivska (Stryj district).
Draft Perspective plan assumes exceeding the norms of availability zones in 15 potential communities. However, at least in three of these cases there is a real possibility of creating capable “remote” communities – Pidbuzka town community (Drohobych district) and Verhnobilkivska (Czyżykivska) (Pustomyty district), Ugerska (Stryjski district) rural communities.
To equalize capabilities of territory which should become a part of Dulibska rural community, it is proposed to merge Dulibska and Stryjska communities into a single Stryjska urban community in the final draft of the Perspective plan-2016.
14 administrative centres of capable territorial communities, approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in 2015, were not included in the draft Perspective plan. Since most of these places are in the sphere of influence of cities of regional significance and district centres. The only exception is the city of Dubliany (Zhovkva district), which is provided as part of Kulykivska town community.
For these reasons, it is recommended to change the Perspective plan draft in the part concerning Drohobych, Zhovkva, Pustomyty and Stryi districts. And also take into account the possibility of adding 4 potential communities: Dublianska urban community (Zhovkva district), Pidbuzka town community (Drohobych district) and Verhnobilkivska (Chyzhykivska) (Pustomyty district), Ugerska (Stryj district) rural communities.
Taking into account parameters of already unified communities (most of the 16 new communities are relatively small in both size and population), we can predict that the Perspective plan will change in 2017 with the aim to enlarge these communities.
Read more about the new Perspective plan in Taras Baranetski’s analytical note (available in Ukrainian):