Legal Responsibility Of Developers For The Provision Of Housing Infrastructure, Facilities And Utilities From A Sustainable Development Perspective

Abstract

The developer's obligation to provide public infrastructure, facilities and utilities (PSU) in housing projects has been normatively regulated, yet its implementation reveals a persistent gap between das sollen and das sein. The legal issues addressed are the vagueness of the norms governing the deadline and mechanism for providing and handing over PSU, the reliance of developer liability on the fault-based construction and the failure to integrate the principle of sustainable development into supervisory and licensing instruments that bind PSU compliance. This study aims to analyse the construction of developers' legal responsibility for PSU, to evaluate the application of the sustainable development principle in its management and to formulate a reconstruction of the relevant norms. This is normative legal research employing statutory and conceptual approaches, using primary and secondary legal materials analysed prescriptively and qualitatively. The findings show that developers' responsibility for PSU is multi-layered, encompassing contractual, administrative, civil and criminal liability, yet enforcement stops at light administrative sanctions and therefore produces no deterrent effect. As a solution, this study proposes reconstructing developers' responsibility for PSU as strict liability, supported by a PSU performance guarantee, a definitive handover deadline and the positioning of PSU compliance as a condition for the continuation of risk-based business licensing. The novelty of this study lies in integrating the principle of sustainable development into that preventive and measurable liability design.