On The Legal Issues Of Development Zone Planning

Development zone Planning is playing an important role in coordinating the development of the economy, society, resources, and environment by managing and controlling all kinds of activities of development zone. From a perspective of the environmental protection, this article pays more attention to the conflict and coordination between the development zone planning and regional environmental planning, the Environmental Impact Assessment of development zone planning, and public participation in making development planning. Then put forward to some measures and suggestions to resolve these problems.This article is divided into three parts:The first part is about conflict and coordination between the development zone planning and regional environmental planning. Development zone planning which is established according to its administrative district can't meet the requirements of regional environmental planning which is established according to its ecological and environmental region. The main reason is the inconsistency between the artificial administrative district and the natural environmental region. To resolve this conflict, we must break the traditional restriction on administrative district, and set up an independent and authoritative regional environmental protection agency based on the natural environmental region. The regional environmental protection agency will manage and execute the overall affairs of regional environmental protection.The second part is about environmental impact assessment of development zone planning. It is very important to make environmental impact assessment of development zone planning. However, there are some problems in making environmental impact assessment of development zone planning, such as, reasonable scope of EIA, weakening legal liability, lack of alternative provision and so on. We should perfect the legal systems of EIA and enforcing the implementation of EIA.The third part is about public participation in development zone planning. To perfect the legal systems of public participation has a significant role in promoting science and rationality of development zone planning and realizing the goals of its planning. However, there are some problems in public participation, such as, negative participation for the public, blocked channels of participation, inadequate participation mechanisms, and lack of an effective system and so on. We should enhance the legal systems of public participation, improve public participation awareness, set up a sound mechanism, and ensure to achieve the goals of public participation.