Case: on challenging the conclusion of the state sanitary-epidemiological examination.
Region: Ukraine, Lviv region.
The essence of the case:
There are plans to construct a poultry farm for 1 million chickens beyond the village of Lany, near residential buildings of local residents. In the Unified Register of Strategic Environmental Assessment, the Detailed Territory Plan and the Strategic Environmental Assessment Report were published and submitted for public discussion through release of the decision #170 of 20.10.2023. Having familiarized themselves with such documents after their release in the Unified register of strategic environmental assessment (registration number of the case – 27-09-2342-23), residents learned that based on the conclusion of the state sanitary-epidemiological examination of 04.08.2023 #12.2-18-4/10663, approved by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection (SSUFSCP), the sanitary protection zone of the planned poultry farm with an annual capacity of 1 million of broiler chickens was reduced from 300 meters to 152 meters. According to the residents, the reduction of the sanitary protection zone was made illegally, the conclusion of the sanitary-epidemiological examination is based on incomplete, inaccurate and unreliable information, which violates their right to safe and healthy environment and should be canceled.
Parties:
Plaintiff – residents of Lany village, Bibrka amalgamated territorial community, Lviv region; Defendant – the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection (SSUFSCP), the third party without independent claims on the side of the Plaintiff – Bibrka City Council, third parties without independent claims on the side of the Defendant – “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise, State Institution “Marzieiev Institute for Public Health of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”, Project Architectural, Technical and Scientific Private Company “Enerhomontazhventyliatsiya”.
The problem and key facts:
According to the sanitary rules, the size of the normative sanitary protection zone for poultry farms (state and collective enterprises) with capacities up to 100 thousand of chickens laying hens and up to 1 million of broilers per year is 300 meters (which is the case of “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise), for farms with capacities from 1 mln and up to 3 mln broilers per year the size of the sanitary zone is 1000 meters. In the course of developing the detailed territory plan, it became obvious that residential buildings are located within normative sanitary protection zone, which makes it impossible to build such an object in the chosen location. Therefore, the “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise initiated the reduction of the normative sanitary protection zone.
The farming enterprise declared the maximum permissible capacity of the poultry farm for the normative sanitary zone of 300 meters and also managed to reduce it almost by half. However, it indicated that although the normative sanitary protection zone is 300 meters but only 7 out of 41 residential buildings are located within this zone from the north to the southwest. In the materials of the conclusion, nothing is mentioned about the remaining 34 houses that are located in the south and north-west directions. Moreover, the land plot of the “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise borders on the lands of residential and public buildings and it is within the reduced sanitary protection zone of 152 meters. Also, the conclusion failed to take into account wind directions and the fact that the wind blows mainly in the direction of residential buildings. It does not consider the topography of the area, the impact on the water layers and neglects the fact that the well feeding centralized water supply for residents is also located within this sanitary zone. All this makes questionable the legality and reasonableness of decreasing the sanitary protection zone for the planned poultry farm of “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise and raises a big question whether the farm will be able to comply with environmental legislation norms after starting its operation.
Local residents who questioned the legality and validity of the adoption of such a conclusion and who had doubts regarding reliability of the data that served as a basis for the conclusion and who were willing to protect their rights to safe and healthy environment, filed a lawsuit to court with a request to declare illegal and cancel the conclusion of the state sanitary-epidemiological examination that was approved by the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection.
The court of first instance fully satisfied the claims of the residents. However, “Agro-Tradition” farming enterprise and the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection filed appeals. The Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal opened proceedings in the case that was supposed to be performed in a written format, that is, on the basis of the documents available in the case file, without summoning the parties to a court session. By the way, the court of the first instance also considered this case in written proceedings. The request of the parties to consider the case in an open court session with the summons of the parties was rejected. On January 24, 2025, the court of appeal fully supported and upheld the decision of the court of the first instance. Therefore, the “Agro-Traditions” farming enterprise lost the basis for designing a poultry farm for 1 million broiler chickens near residential buildings.
However, it is worth noting that without waiting for the approval of the draft detailed plan and obtaining permission to start construction works, the farm in fact started such construction works. In order to record this fact and make the farm comply with the current construction and sanitary regulations, the residents submitted a collective appeal to the State Inspection of Architecture and Urban Planning with a request to conduct an unscheduled inspection of the farm’s compliance with the requirements of urban planning legislation and are awaiting results of its consideration.
The decision of the court of the first instance can be found here.
The decision of the appellate court can be found here.
More details in Ukrainian can be found here.
