site.btaParliament Adopts Amendments Specifying Conditions for Changing Purpose of Agricultural Land When Building Renewable Energy Facilities

Parliament adopted Thursday at second reading amendments to the Agricultural Land Ownership and Use Act specifying the conditions for changing the purpose of agricultural land when building renewable energy facilities.

The changes also amend the texts of the Agricultural Land Conservation Act. There is a new provision, proposed by Vazrazhdane MP Daniel Petrov, according to which the text, related to possibility of construction of objects for the production of energy from renewable sources and the change of land use, applies for permanent meadows and pastures when procedures have been conducted for them in the last 3 years under the conditions of the Agricultural Land Ownership and Use Act and no lease contracts have been concluded.

The text related to the possibility of building renewable energy production facilities in the Agricultural Land Ownership and Use Act stipulates that if it is necessary to build renewable energy production facilities in order to achieve the national target, the agricultural land will be considered to have a changed purpose after the entry into force of a detailed development plan providing for the construction of a renewable energy production facility.

Petrov explained that the voted texts make amendments to the Agricultural Land Conservation Act because the main argument with which the municipal councils changed the purpose of agricultural land and allowed the construction of solar parks was that these lands were not good for anything else. "In this regard, our proposal is that if a pasture or meadow has not been applied for support under the Agricultural Land Ownership and Use Act in the last 3 years, then it can be given to investors to build photovoltaic plants."  According to the MEP, this argument is valid only if no application has been submitted for the use of the land in question in the last 3 years.