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On October 22, 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers approved changes to a series of building regulations aimed at reducing the administrative burden in real estate development by eliminating duplicate data requirements in various mandatory construction documents and reassessing the necessity and applicability of these documents.
These regulatory changes will alleviate the administrative load on the construction process, enabling project managers and supervisors to better plan their actions and allocate more time to actual construction supervision rather than fulfilling formal requirements. This will ensure a more predictable construction workflow and reduce disputes between construction process participants and supervisory institutions.
Accordingly, construction specialists (such as project managers, supervisors, and author supervisors) will have fewer actions to perform within the Construction Information System to record the construction progress in the construction journal and prepare reports on completed work. This will reduce the workload and time required compared to the current regulations.
Key changes to the construction regulations include:
- Construction personnel can make a single daily entry in the construction journal for consecutive, uniform tasks without repetitive entries if these tasks continue over several days.
- It will no longer be necessary to differentiate between daily and special construction tasks, reducing disputes over correct journal entries.
- Parties must agree on additional acceptance reports beyond those for load-bearing structures and fire safety systems.
- Construction work may proceed in parallel with the acceptance process for construction reports.
- Supervisors must specify in advance which daily tasks they intend to inspect.
To allow construction participants time to prepare for these regulatory changes and to adapt the Construction Information System, the overall amendments to construction regulations will come into effect on July 1, 2025.
In addition to these general changes, specific adjustments in the regulations for certain engineering structures will mean that construction documentation will no longer be required for groundwater monitoring and exploration drilling at hydrotechnical structures. These changes, effective November 1, 2024, will facilitate AS “Latvenergo’s” planning and maintenance of hydroelectric power plants, ensuring timely data collection on adverse exogenous processes near hydrotechnical structures.
Similarly, amendments in the regulations for electronic communications engineering structures clarify the procedure for relocating electronic communication networks into another operator's cable duct infrastructure, ensuring consistent requirements for any electronic communication network installation. These changes will also take effect on November 1, 2024.
The amendments to construction regulations were developed in line with the action plan approved by the government on April 2, 2024, aimed at reducing the administrative burden in real estate development. This plan includes approximately 60 initiatives focused on improving construction documentation and reducing construction quality risks.
The Ministry of Economics continues to work on regulatory amendments to ease the construction process, eliminate administrative obstacles throughout the construction process, revise the Construction Law, and adjust requirements for prefabricated building placement. Efforts to reduce the administrative burden in real estate development are ongoing, interconnected, and focused on simplifying processes.
Further information on the amendments approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in regulations on Building Construction, Internal Maritime Waters, Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone Structures, Railway Construction, Specific Engineering Structures, Radiation Safety-Related Structures, Hydrotechnical and Drainage Structures, and Electronic Communication Engineering Structures can be found on the Unified Legal Acts Portal.