Berlin, 18 February 2021. The Interior Committee of the German Bundestag has invited Prof Dr Olaf Reidt in the capacity of an expert on planning law and an experienced trial lawyer to an expert hearing to be held on 22 February 2021. At the request of the parliamentary party group DIE LINKE, the committee is to address the extension of the German Planning Security Act (PlanSiG). With an extension of the Planning Security Act, participation procedures in construction projects will be able to continue to take place digitally without physical meetings.
Until the Planning Security Act first went into force, physical presence of persons was required for planning and approval procedures, for example when inspecting documents or conducting discussion and hearing dates. Due to the need for infection control, it is not possible for these procedural steps to be carried out now as usual since the outbreak of the pandemic. Temporary substitute options, e. g. Internet publications or the execution of online consultations, were for this reason created with the Planning Security Act.
Prof. Dr. Olaf Reidt, specialist lawyer for administrative law and partner in the law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs, was a member of the Innovation Forum on Planning Acceleration set up by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) in 2016 and of the Construction Land Commission set up by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 2018. He is a member of the Federal Ministry of the Interior's Standing Advisory Council on Administrative Procedural Law and advises the government on infrastructure projects throughout Germany, such as trunk roads, airports, railways and federal waterways (e. g. Berlin Airport, dredging of the Elbe) and urban development projects, inter alia from the housing sector, including urban development measures. His practice is focused on construction and specialised planning law (in particular, air traffic, roads, waterways, urban development projects including special real estate) as well as immission control law (in particular licensing procedures for industrial plants).
