Land Dual Power — the Nizhny Novgorod term for the situation in which land in the city is controlled not by the city but by the Region. It took shape in the second half of the 2000s against the backdrop of the standoff between Governor Valery Shantsev and Mayor Bulavinov, when authority over land plots whose state ownership had not been delineated passed to the Regional government, while the City Hall retained responsibility for approvals, utilities, and social infrastructure. The legal framework has changed twice since then, yet the division itself persists into 2026: under the general federal rule, the city would control such land, but the Region has reclaimed that authority through its own legislation.[1][3]
How it is structured legally
The dispute of the mid-2000s rested on the earlier version of the federal law enacting the Land Code: the right to manage undelineated land in the administrative center of a federal subject was vested in the region. It was precisely this provision that the regional prosecutor's office invoked when it secured the annulment of amendments that had extended the Region's authority to all municipalities.
A new framework has been in force since 1 March 2015. Article 3.3, introduced by Federal Law No. 171-FZ of 23 June 2014, assigned the allocation of undelineated land to the local self-government body of a city district — that is, to the city under the general rule.[1]
At the same time, however, regions were given a tool for redistributing powers. Under Nizhny Novgorod Region Law No. 197-Z of 23 December 2014, adopted by the Legislative Assembly on 18 December 2014 and signed by Governor Shantsev, some powers of local self-government bodies were transferred to the Regional government — and transferred "for an indefinite term." The law came into force on 1 January 2015, two months before the federal provision that would otherwise have returned the land to the city.[3]
What was left to the city
Under the current version of the regional law, the Regional government allocates land plots on the territory of the city district of Nizhny Novgorod, with several exceptions. The city retains plots allocated to citizens for individual housing construction, personal subsidiary farming, horticulture and kitchen gardening, individual garages and garage cooperatives, certain cases involving peasant (farming) households, and plots within built-up areas covered by a development agreement.[3]
The basic regional law on land relations — dated 13 December 2005, No. 192-Z — meanwhile remains in force and has been rewritten more than ten times: through amendments in 2008, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.[2] It merely states that plots are allocated either by the authorized executive body of the Region or by local self-government bodies, and which of the two applies is determined by the redistribution law.
The urban-planning dimension
In time, urban planning was added to the land question. A separate article of the regional redistribution law introduces "agglomeration" powers: in the interest of unified approaches to urban-planning activities and the development of the potential of the Nizhny Novgorod Agglomeration — encompassing Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk, and the Bogorodsky and Kstovsky districts — the Regional government assumed responsibility for master plans, land-use and development rules, territorial planning documentation, urban-planning plans for plots, construction permits, commissioning permits, and decisions on integrated territorial development.[3]
Municipalities were left with organizing and conducting public discussions and public hearings in this sphere.[3]
How the amendments evolved
On 31 March 2016, during debate on amendments to the redistribution law, deputies of the Legislative Assembly voted in favor of a provision they had just criticized, returning urban-planning powers to cities with populations exceeding one hundred thousand — but not to Nizhny Novgorod. The Speaker attributed this to fatigue in the chamber; Kommersant's report on the episode ran under the headline "A Glitch in Their Heads."[5]
On 15 December 2016, the Legislative Assembly passed, in two readings, a law redistributing urban-planning powers — 49 deputies voted in favor. Control over undelineated land remained with the Regional government, except for plots intended for individual housing construction, personal subsidiary and farming households, and agricultural production. The chair of the relevant committee, Andrey Tarasov, acknowledged at the time that "problematic issues remain" regarding undelineated land: plots for individual construction fall under the jurisdiction of both the municipality and the Region.[6]
The law continued to be amended — in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022; the amending law of 27 December 2022, No. 210-Z, lists the entire series of preceding amendments, and some earlier provisions are marked as having lapsed in 2017, 2023, and 2024.[4]
How the dual power came about
The arrangement under which the Region controls city land emerged not from a single decision but from a chain of steps. In the autumn of 2005, heads of local self-government signed agreements with the Governor on the joint exercise of land-relations powers, effectively transferring the right to allocate plots to the Regional government; municipalities were left with plots smaller than two hundred square metres.[7]
In July 2006, the Regional Legislative Assembly, after lengthy debate, passed a version of the law "On the Regulation of Land Relations in Nizhny Novgorod Region" that granted the Regional government broad authority over plots whose state ownership had not been delineated — the majority of all land. The regional prosecutor's office concluded that the law contradicted federal law: under the Land Code, the Region's authority extends only to the administrative center of the federal subject, i.e., Nizhny Novgorod itself, and not to all municipalities. The amendments were struck down and the rights were returned to the heads of local self-government — to all of them except the Nizhny Novgorod mayor.[7]
The outcome was what came to be called dual power: the Region controls city land, while the City Hall controls utility connections, zoning, technical documentation, and social infrastructure — without which a plot is useless. The chair of the Legislative Assembly's relevant committee, Aleksandr Serikov, had warned deputies of exactly this fork in the road during debate on the amendments.[7]
Land as money and power
The dispute was not about the legal scheme but about revenue. Every new city administration began by revisiting land relations: when Mayor Vadim Bulavinov took charge of the city in 2002, he revoked some of his predecessors' orders allocating plots and cancelled several dozen contracts with investors — ones which, in the City Hall's assessment, had been concluded behind closed doors and on terms unfavorable to the city. The underlying mechanism, however, did not change: decisions turned on a developer's closeness to power, and pricing remained opaque.[7]
City fees for approvals and resettlement reached as much as a quarter of a project's value — on top of the price of the plot itself; a developer could also be required to make an investment contribution ranging from landscaping a park to rehousing residents and demolishing dilapidated buildings. Valery Shantsev likewise turned to reforming land law as soon as he took office as Governor in 2005: the city was becoming attractive to investors and, in terms of housing prices, ranked just behind Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg.[7]
The promised "one-stop shop," which was supposed to reduce document review from several years to two or three months, did not remedy the situation: the decision to allocate a plot is made by the investment council under the Governor, while zoning, registration, and technical documentation remain with the municipality, which has its own rules, and Vodokanal and Teploenergо set their own conditions as well.[7]
The rules of the game are clear, but are often difficult to meet. The investment council under the Governor makes the decision to allocate a plot, but zoning, registration, and the issuance of technical documentation are already within the powers of the municipal authority, which operates by its own rules.
Sources
- consultant.ru — ConsultantPlus — Article 3.3 of Federal Law No. 137-FZ of 25 October 2001 "On the Enactment of the Land Code of the Russian Federation" (archive)
- nnovpravo.ru — Legal Acts of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Law of Nizhny Novgorod Region No. 192-Z of 13 December 2005 "On the Regulation of Land Relations in Nizhny Novgorod Region"
- nnovpravo.ru — Legal Acts of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Law of Nizhny Novgorod Region No. 197-Z of 23 December 2014 "On the Redistribution of Certain Powers"
- nnovpravo.ru — Legal Acts of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Law of Nizhny Novgorod Region No. 210-Z of 27 December 2022 on amendments to the law on the redistribution of powers
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — A Glitch in Their Heads: Deputies of the Legislative Assembly and Urban-Planning Powers (archive)
- MK — Nizhny Novgorod — Moskovsky Komsomolets in Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhny Novgorod Municipalities Gain a Voice and Land (archive)
- Galina Shcherbo, magazine Expert — Land Dual Power, No. 11, 2008