Problems of territorial planning and quality of living environment

Territorial planning is considered as the important mechanism of creating preconditions for raising the quality of life. Accordingly to the basic legislative document - Urban Planning Code, the goal of regional planning is to locate functional zones, specify the planned placement of federal, regional, municipal objects. Branch character of the planning often brings about conflicts of interests in the use of territories. One of the main tasks of the regional planning is identification of such conflict situations and search for compromising solutions with the subsequent adjustments of the planned objects location, but this is not stipulated by the Urban Planning Code. The article claims that imperfection of the planning legislation hampers full realization of these functions, overcoming the imbalance in the development of these territories. Excess concentration of production and compression of the economic space worsen the ecological situation. To form a quality environment for human vital activity it is necessary to coordinate the planned load on the natural complex with environmental capacity of the economic activity in the given territory. These problems can be solved, in the authors’ view, through improvement of the system of environmental restraints in territories on the basis of assessment of their environmental capacity. It is noted in the article that in the international practice of territorial planning is observed an extension of the goals scope - from creation of town-planning preconditions for the sustainable development of settlements and raising the living environment quality to formation of competitive towns and territories. The article provides a brief analysis of the methods for assessment of the living environment quality approved by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation (2013). It’s noted that implementation of the Federal laws «On the Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation» and «On the Industrial Policy in the Russia Federation» passed in 2014 will make it possible to raise the role of town-planning in creation of high quality living environment.