Urbanization and land management issues in Kosovo

Abstract: This study aims to describe the structure of land management in Kosovo, and existing issues with the current urban planning strategy in the country. The land is currently utilized to the best extent when developing the urban area and the system seems to move toward more necessary controls. Two specific factors have been recognized as influencing the urban planning process. One is illegal buildings and the other is land use changes. A general solution to the illegal buildings issue has been legalization and planning further development with consideration to the existing state. The other issue, changing the land use, is a formal way of labelling the land for optimization of future usage, where changes have been more difficult to implement. The planning documents in Kosovo did not always reflect the reality, greatly due to that urban development often occurs at a much faster pace than the updating of existing plans. Laws and regulations were thus sometimes hard to apply, and the cooperation between the central and local level was not always as extensive as desired. All investigated municipalities and institutions have room for improvement in different ways. This investigation gives an analysis of select institutions in Kosovo with the purpose of identifying their strengths and weaknesses, to find points for further improvement. In addition, this might also be of interest for international partners of Kosovo, for further orientation around