These restrictions can relate to nature conservation issues, and even to a rise in sea levels, "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported.

Depending on the region, building can take place no closer than 100 meters or 200 meters from the seashore, with the zone for lakes and rivers 50 meters.

While some experts say that a detailed plan made for a property is inviolable, something no one can take away from an owner the state and some of its agencies say this is not so; there is also a lack of clarity whether it is national or local government which has the right to decide on a landowner's property.

There are around 15,000 shoreline properties in Estonia according to the most recent estimates. The Land and Spatial Development Board (Maa- ja Ruumiamet), formerly the Land Board, maps the shoreline every eight years, which in addition to human-built properties also sees changes in actual above sea-level land: The west coast has grown in land area, the north coast shrunk, which has an effect on land which can be built on, measured in cadastral units.

According to this, the western coast has gained land, the northern coast has lost land, and properties change accordingly.

It can get bigger; in more extreme cases a property can actually disappear. "We have some small islets which have been flooded by water, and since what is now there is sea, not a cadastral unit, we have to delete them," said Erik Ernits, director of spatial data services at the land and land board.

Several state agencies involved in issue

It is not the agency which imposes restrictions on construction, however.

"We don't deal with restrictions in any other way than by determining the baseline for those restrictions. Here, the landowner has an opportunity to alter the construction-prohibition area, but such exceptions must be made during the planning process, and the local government has to request the exception," Ernits went on.

One place where shoreline changes have led to plots designated as building land which are now useless for that is in Viimsi, just outside Tallinn.

Architect Haldo Oravas' Swedish client acquired three plots in the municipality some years ago. Then, three years ago, another agency, the Land Board (Maa-amet) informed the owner that, since part of the land had been washed away, the state's maritime boundary had also changed, leading to a reduction in the size of the cadastral unit.

"In this case what happened was that a plot with building rights shrank by 480 square meters. On the adjacent plot [the shrinkage] was 700 square meters. The extent of the construction-prohibition zone also depends on this shoreline, as defined in the detailed plan. It was viable to build three family houses. Under current law and regulations, that would no longer be viable, as the prohibited zone is now counted from the revised shoreline," said Oravas, a past Viimsi municipal mayor.

Conservation questions

Another state agency, the Environmental Board (Keskkonnaamet), found that issues with construction-prohibition zones affect many low lying and flat coastal areas of Estonia, and exceptions to the reduction of these are being granted less and less. Municipalities first and foremost must base their planning on the Nature Conservation Act.

"Naturally, the Environmental Board approves detailed plans which seek to reduce the construction-prohibition zone, as well as comprehensive plans. We review these. We can clearly state that we actually do find reasonable solutions, though there are indeed places where we must say that the social contract embodied in legal norms stipulates that nature — a place in which everyone should be able to enjoy this wonderful environment — is an area where construction cannot take place," Environmental Board director general Rainer Vakra said.

Local government can change what an owner is and is not allowed to do with a property, however, said Ahto Pahk, legal adviser at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

"The shoreline moves, or perhaps a protected species has appeared on the property, or one is discovered. There may also be some condition related to a neighboring property. A detailed plan, as long as it is valid, is indeed the basis that is created so an individual can realize their building rights, and it does not matter how long ago it was adopted," Pahk said.

Viimsi deputy mayor: No unilateral changes without compensation

Oravas said he had expected cooperation from the Viimsi municipal government, which could have applied to the Environmental Board for an exception to reduce the construction-prohibition zone, adding the problems do not concern only the plots noted above: In some cases, landowners have not even been notified of the changes to cadastral units.

Viimsi deputy mayor Alar Mik however disputed this.

"We are not turning any land in Viimsi which currently has building rights into land without those building rights. If such a need should arise somewhere — perhaps due to a green corridor where nothing has been built — then in that case the landowner must be compensated and the land bought out," Mik said.

In any case, the previous land division, carried out a few years after the restoration of independence, had not been rational, he added, with some plots being measured right into the water itself.

"Where was the municipality at the time when it approved or, through its orders, gave consent for some sort of cadastral boundaries or returns? How did it even allow measurement into the water? Same with the Land Board — how was it permitted to measure a property right into the water? What year did this happen in? It was sometime in the late 1990s," Mik said.

Haapsalu another affected location

But problems with construction-prohibition zones exist elsewhere along Estonia's lengthy coastline too. For example, the city of Haapsalu in the west of the country has established a new comprehensive plan that created a construction-prohibition zone on the seaside Topu property.

Margit Mutso said this altered the fundamental nature of the previously established detailed plan and left as much as "90 percent of the building rights granted by the detailed plan … invalid. The fact that the comprehensive plan now overrides the detailed plan, and that without involving the landowner — such a case has never occurred in my practice," Mutso said.

Haapsalu deputy mayor Helen Rammu pointed to an administrative quagmire as much as an actual one. "The detailed plan in question lies in an area where, under the previous comprehensive plan, the construction-prohibition zone had been reduced, but during the drafting of the new comprehensive plan the Environmental Board was no longer willing to reduce the prohibition zone in that area. This means that at present we cannot issue building permits within that zone," she said.

There is currently one court case underway on planning matters between a property owner and the municipality, which may lead to a precedent which could be set for the future, Rammu added.

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