Status Of Notification Scheme Prescribed By The Landscape Ordinance Based On The Landscape Act

In Japan, economic efficiency has been given priority and confused landscapes have been formed. Following these considerations, the Landscape Act was enacted in 2004 to develop favorable urban and rural landscapes. The Landscape Act stipulates that local governments can define Landscape Plan and landscape ordinance on their individuality so that they can reflect the unique characteristics of municipalities. It is important to enact landscape ordinance to secure a Landscape Plan, because the Landscape Plan is not legally binding on development activities. The specific objective of study is to clarify status of notification scheme for development activities prescribed by the landscape ordinance to investigate the status and effects of landscape ordinance. For the purpose, we conducted questionnaire survey to the local governments of 35 cities with population ranging from over 100,000 to less than 400,000 that do not fall in the three major metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka). In the notification scheme, standard of notification obligation is the height which emphasizes the view, the gross area that affect the landscape and the change of the appearance such as the color. As a result, there were more than 600 notifications in 9 cities, among them there were over half of those notifications exceeding the standard of the gross area, about 20% exceeded the standard of height, notifications on changes in appearance were less than 2%, and there were about 10 notifications concerning solar photovoltaic generation.