“In light of the current quarantine situation, in order to comply with health safety requirements and ensure that landlords are paid compensations according to market value on time, documentation for taking the land for the needs of society will be signed with the help of a courier service. We invite everyone to be understanding and act in solidarity – Rail Baltica is a project of importance for both our country and the European Union, which we have to continue and implement on time,” says Minister of Transport and Communications Jaroslavas Narkevičius.
The minister noted that society already had a chance to make sure that Rail Baltica is a strategically important object, which serves even in critical situations, when, after countries declared quarantine, citizens which could not enter Lithuania were taken by a railroad from Germany.
The signing process of documentation for taking land for the needs of society signing process will be carried out in two stages. During the first stage, application forms will be sent to landowners through courier service, which owners would fill in to agree to sign the land transfer legislation remotely. The completed forms could be scanned or photographed and sent to the given email address or to be sent via mail to the given postal address.
During the second stage, the original documents and forms for filling will be sent to the persons who agreed to sign the land transfer legislation remotely through courier service, together with a special envelope, prepared for answering with a written project promoter’s address and prepaid shipping. This envelope has to be sent from a post office. The ones who do not want to commute to post offices will be able to call a courier free of charge and to pass the signed documents to him.
Currently, the first application forms for signing the legislation remotely are already sent to the landowners; they are planned to be sent to all owners until mid-May. Applications have to be signed in 20 calendar days. Thirty days will be allocated for signing the second stage documentation. Land transfer procedures are expected to be finished until the end of June of the current year.
The repurchased land is needed for secondary roads related to the European railway line Rail Baltica between Kaunas and the state border of Lithuania and Latvia. Land repurchase procedures were begun by PLC Lietuvos Geležinkeliai and the Ministry of Transport and Communication at the beginning of the year 2019. Documentation signing was started at the end of 2019 and has already concluded in Kaunas municipality’s territory.
During this stage of land acquisitions for the needs of society, it is planned to repurchase around 1,200 properties in total, their overall area amounts to 380 ha. Around 20% of the land is forested, the rest is mostly agricultural lands.
Just like in case of the land acquired to build Rail Baltica, areas taken for the needs of society may be granted for use temporarily to persons who had been using them before the procedure of taking the land began, with the condition that there would be no construction work ongoing at the beginning of the year 2021. Permissions to temporarily use national property lands will be given before the beginning of construction work; they will be issued by the National Land Service’s municipal departments.
