Verwirklichung von Infrastrukturprojekten in Abschnitten im Lichte der Rechtsprechung des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts

Experiences of the last twenty years have shown, that it has become more and more difficult to realize complex infrastructure projects, because environmental requirements, in particular, have increased. Therefore, the administrative decision process often has been divided in many sections to simplify the administrative procedure, and section building (»Abschnittsbildung«) has evolved into a common and vital procedural tool of infrastructure law. The German Federal Administrative Court has developed manifold rules concerning section building to ensure that a fragmentation of the administrative procedure does not result in legal deficits, especially deficits of legal protection. This article has analysed and systematised this jurisdiction. It has shown, that section building in administrative procedures must keep an exception, which always needs to be justified. Furthermore, section building is not allowed without consideration of the overall project and should not lead into a useless project torso. Thus, in some areas of infrastructure law (for example when public roads or highways are built) each section of the overall project has to fulfill a self-contained function and has to fit into the existing infrastructure. Apart from that section building bears special legal phenomenons, for example binding intermediate results (»fixed-points«; »Zwangspunkte«), which arise when one section of the overall project is finished and the next section has to begin where the former one has ended. These binding intermediate results have significant influence on European environmental directives. They reduce the number of main alternatives, which developers have to study, and downsize the focus of the assessment of the effects of the projects on the environment.