Land-use plan

If you want to know whether your property could be used as a building plot at all, you should consult the land-use plan of your municipality.

The land-use plan is the municipality's preparatory spatial land-use plan (urban master plan). It contains the urban land uses intended by the planning municipality and differentiated for the individual areas. For example, residential areas, commercial areas, utility areas, areas for community needs, transport areas, green spaces, forest areas, and agricultural land.

The land-use plan does not develop any direct legal effect with regard to citizens. No legal claims, in particular the right to a building permit for a specific plot of land, can be derived from its graphic and textual representations. However, it represents a program that is binding on the administration and other authorities and binds them to its planning.

Indirect affectedness arises from the fact that development plans, which contain provisions that are legally binding on all citizens, must be developed from the representations of the land-use plan.
Furthermore, citizens are indirectly affected by project approvals in the "outlying area" pursuant to Section 35 of the Federal Building Code (BauGB), because representations in the land-use plan that contradict the construction project could be asserted against it as an "impairment of public interests.".