Tallinn legal memo keeps Estonia extension plan possible

A Tallinn legal service memo says planning an extension of the Estonia opera house in the direction of Uus turg cannot be ruled out in principle or in every possible design, ERR reported.

The 18-page memo examines the decision not to approve heritage protection special conditions for the Uus turg area’s detailed plan. It says Tallinn’s Urban Planning Department had grounds to refuse approval, but that this does not legally establish that an extension in the area is impossible.

The legal service said it was not taking a position on whether the extension would be suitable and had no personal preference on the issue. The permissibility of the project must be assessed in the relevant administrative proceedings.

Estonia’s national opera submitted the special conditions to the Tallinn Urban Planning Department on June 22. The aim was to enable a new auditorium wing with a modern hall to be built alongside the existing theatre building in the Uus turg area.

On August 21, Carolin Pihlap, head of the department’s heritage protection division, refused to approve the conditions. She said they did not ensure the preservation or visibility of the heritage protection area or immovable monument, did not meet the objectives of the protection zone, and failed to comply with the required content and form.

The legal service also found that Tallinn’s legal information system did not show that the head of the Urban Planning Department had formally authorised the head of the heritage protection division to approve heritage protection special conditions for a detailed plan.

It said that if the division head had carried out a procedural act without authorisation, this would constitute a breach of internal competence requirements. However, the memo said, such a procedural error would not automatically make the act unlawful.

Because the refusal could obstruct further proceedings on the detailed plan in the requested form, the legal service said Estonia’s right to appeal could not be ruled out. However, the company has not yet submitted an application to Tallinn to initiate the detailed plan.

If a court found that discretionary powers had not been exercised lawfully, it could order the procedure to be repeated. Estonia could also submit new, more precise special conditions instead of challenging the decision.

The legal service said the department’s reasoning included some irrelevant considerations and was somewhat contradictory and legally imprecise. However, it found the final conclusion justified and probably legally defensible.

The memo cautioned that broader conclusions should be avoided if the department believed the proposal lacked a sufficiently specific maximum volume, construction area and solution for preserving archaeological structures. It said the shortcomings of the submitted proposal did not justify concluding that a large Estonia extension was impossible at that location.

The memo was disclosed after Tallinn’s communications service first announced that the city would commission heritage protection special conditions for an alternative location for the extension. It later issued a new statement quoting Mayor Peeter Raudsepp as saying no such decision had been made and describing the earlier announcement as an unauthorised initiative by the department.