How To Check If A Japanese Property Is On A Planned City Road (都市計画道路)

Where the line comes from

Article 11, paragraph 1 of the City Planning Act lists the facilities a city plan may fix inside a 都市計画区域 (city planning area), and roads head the first item on that list, the transport facilities. The same paragraph lets a plan fix those facilities outside the city planning area too where that is particularly necessary. Once a road is actually fixed in a city plan, Article 4, paragraph 6 makes it a 都市計画施設: a planned urban facility. Everything in this guide follows from that one status.

The plan becomes legally effective on the day of its public notice (告示), under Article 20, paragraph 3. It is not recorded at the Legal Affairs Bureau and it will not appear on the property register. Instead, Article 20, paragraph 2 requires the prefectural governor and the municipal mayor to make the plan documents referred to in Article 14, paragraph 1 (図書) available for public inspection, by keeping them at the prefectural or municipal office or by another appropriate method. That public inspection duty is where your check ends up, and it is the reason the municipality, not the register, is the authoritative source.

Phase one: the plan is decided, nothing is being built

This is the state most affected parcels are in, often for decades.

Article 53, paragraph 1 is the operative rule: a person who intends to build a building within the area of a 都市計画施設 must obtain the permission of the 都道府県知事等. Under the definition in Article 26, that means the prefectural governor, or, where the land is inside a 市 (city), the mayor of that city. In a 町 or 村 it is the governor.

Two points about the scope decide how much this matters to you.

• What "build" covers. Article 4, paragraph 10 imports the definition from the Building Standards Act, and Article 2, item 13 of that Act defines 建築 as new construction (新築), extension (増築), reconstruction (改築) or relocation (移転). All four need permission. Article 53, paragraph 1 then lists five exceptions, and four of them will not apply to you: emergency measures necessary in a disaster (item 2), acts carried out as execution of the city planning project itself or equivalents specified by Cabinet Order (item 3), and two technical cases, acts complying with a minimum separation distance and maximum load fixed under the second sentence of Article 11, paragraph 3 (item 4), and Cabinet Order specified acts in the part of an Article 12-11 road area that is also to be used as a building site (item 5). The one that matters to an ordinary owner is item 1, the "minor act" specified by Cabinet Order, and Article 37 of the Enforcement Order defines it exactly: the reconstruction or relocation of a wooden building with two or fewer storeys and no basement. Neither a new build nor an extension is exempt as a minor act, because item 1 reaches only reconstruction and relocation. Items 4 and 5 can in principle cover a new build, but only inside the narrow three dimensional range and 立体道路 cases just described, so on an ordinary parcel assume a new build or an extension needs permission. An owner rebuilding a small old wooden house like for like may need none at all, while the same owner adding a room does.
• What it does not cover. Article 53 restricts building, and nothing else. Regrading the land, digging, or putting up a non building structure is not caught at this stage. Nor is renting or using the land as it stands. Selling is a different matter, but under a different statute: see the Publicly Owned Land Act filing below. The restriction is narrower than owners often assume.

The other half of phase one is the test Article 54 applies. The governor or mayor must grant the Article 53 permission if the application meets any one of three conditions. Two of them are special cases: the building conforms to provisions about buildings contained in the city plan itself (item 1), or it sits outside a three dimensional range fixed for the facility under Article 11, paragraph 3 and would not seriously obstruct the works (item 2). The third is the one that applies to an ordinary house, and it sets the shape of what gets built on planned road land across Japan. Item 3 requires that the building:

• has two or fewer storeys and no basement;
• has main structural parts (主要構造部, as defined in Article 2, item 5 of the Building Standards Act) of timber, steel frame, concrete block or a similar structure; and
• is judged to be easily relocated or removed.

All three limbs must hold together. That is why the houses standing on planned road strips are two storey timber or steel frame buildings: a reinforced concrete three storey block fails item 3, and unless it happens to meet item 1 or item 2, the authority is then not obliged to approve it. Note what the duty is and is not. Where item 3 is met, permission must be granted, so this is not a discretionary planning consent you might simply be refused. Where none of the three is met, the article imposes no duty either way.

Phase one and a half: designation as 事業予定地

There is a tier above the ordinary planned facility area, and it reverses the position.

Article 55, paragraph 1 creates a 事業予定地 by two routes, and they are not the same. For a 都市計画施設, which is the planned road case, it is land inside the facility area that the governor or mayor has specifically designated: the designation is a separate administrative act, not an automatic consequence of the plan, so most parcels under a planned line are not 事業予定地. For a 市街地開発事業 (excluding land readjustment projects and new urban infrastructure projects) the whole project area qualifies with no further designation. Either way, the authority may refuse the Article 53 permission on that land notwithstanding Article 54. The must grant duty falls away. The only carve out is land for which a notice of non purchase has already been given under Article 56, paragraph 2. A public notice follows under Article 55, paragraph 4.

Designation is the point where the restriction acquires a remedy. Article 56, paragraph 1 lets the owner of land inside a 事業予定地 request that the authority buy it, on the ground that refusing building permission under Article 55, paragraph 1 would seriously impair the use of the land. On such a request the authority shall buy the land at market value (時価) absent special circumstances. Paragraph 2 requires it to notify the owner without delay whether it will buy or not. In the planning phase this is the only route to a compelled purchase, and it exists only for land that is a 事業予定地, not for every parcel under a planned line. A second and much narrower one appears once a project is authorised, under Article 68.

Designation also restricts selling, though not everywhere. The trigger in Article 57, paragraph 1 is narrower than the designation itself: for a 都市計画施設 it is the Article 55, paragraph 4 public notice relating to a facility inside a 市街化区域 or inside a 都市計画区域 for which no 区域区分 has been drawn. A designated planned road in a 市街化調整区域 therefore does not bring this regime with it, though the Publicly Owned Land Act filing described below may apply there instead, since its own trigger is the facility area and carries no 市街化調整区域 exclusion. Where it does apply, Article 57, paragraph 2 provides that more than ten days after that public notice, a person intending to transfer land inside the 事業予定地 for value must notify the authority in writing of the land, the intended price and the intended counterparty. One practical point on both this notification and the Article 56 purchase request: the counterparty may be a person publicly notified under Article 55, paragraph 4, such as the body that will carry out the works, rather than the governor or mayor, so ask who it is. If within thirty days the authority notifies an intention to buy, Article 57, paragraph 3 deems a sale concluded between them at the price stated in the notification, and paragraph 4 forbids any transfer during that window. Read that paragraph's parenthetical: the standstill runs for the thirty days or until the authority gives notice that it will not buy, whichever comes first, so thirty days is a maximum rather than a fixed wait.

Read the exclusion in paragraph 2 carefully, because it is where most readings of this article go wrong. The duty expressly does not apply to a person transferring the land together with the buildings and other structures fixed on it. An ordinary sale of a house with its land therefore falls outside it. The City Planning Act notification duty bites on bare land.

The same proviso carries two further exceptions. The duty does not apply where all or part of the land is subject to Article 46 of the Cultural Properties Protection Act, including as applied through Article 83 to important tangible folk cultural property. That article is the national pre-emption: an owner selling an important cultural property for value must first offer it to the State through the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, stating the counterparty and the intended price. You are not put in two statutory pre-emption queues at once. Nor does the duty apply where the land is included in the land of a city planning project being carried out, more than ten days after the Article 66 public notice. That is the handover to Article 67 below, so you file under Article 57 or under Article 67, never both.

Which raises the obvious question about the phase before any designation, and the answer is not "nothing". In the ordinary planned facility area a different statute does this job: the Act on Promotion of Expansion of Publicly Owned Land. Article 4, paragraph 1, item 1 requires the owner of land inside the area of a 都市計画施設 who intends to transfer it for value to notify the location, area, intended price and intended counterparty, to the city mayor where the land is in a 市 and otherwise to the prefectural governor through the town or village head. Article 8 then bars a transfer to anyone but the public body for three weeks from the Article 6 notice. Three features of it matter to a seller:

• The floor is 200 square metres, and it can be lower. Article 4, paragraph 2, item 10, with Article 3, paragraph 3 of the Enforcement Order, exempts land below 200 square metres, but a prefecture, or a city for its own area, may by ordinance set a lower figure for a limited area, down to 100 square metres, or 50 in a 防災再開発促進地区. Check the local ordinance rather than assuming 200.
• There is no land plus building carve out. The exclusions in Article 4, paragraph 2 do not include selling the land together with its buildings. So the house and land sale that escapes City Planning Act Article 57 can still owe this filing.
• The three regimes are sequential, not cumulative. Article 4, paragraph 2, item 5 switches this filing off once the land is inside a 事業予定地, more than ten days after the Article 57, paragraph 1 notice, or inside a city planning project's land after the Article 66 notice. So it is this Act in phase one, Article 57 after designation, Article 67 after authorisation: one filing, never two. Item 2 of the same paragraph carries the Cultural Properties Protection Act Article 46 exclusion as well, exactly like both City Planning Act articles.

That is the regime most likely to catch a seller unawares, because it applies in the quiet phase where nothing appears to be happening.

Phase two: the project is authorised

When a city planning project is actually authorised, the restriction changes character.

Article 62, paragraph 1 requires a public notice of the 施行者 (the body carrying out the works), the type of project, the project execution period and the 事業地, the land the project covers. Paragraph 2 then requires the municipal mayor to keep copies of the project documents available for public inspection until the project period ends. If you want to know whether a line near you has moved from a plan to a funded project, that public notice and those documents are the answer, and the project period is the date you have been looking for.

Inside the 事業地, Article 65, paragraph 1 applies instead of Article 53, which Article 53, paragraph 3 switches off once the Article 62 notice that Article 65 refers to is out. It is materially wider and materially stricter. Permission from the governor or mayor is now needed to change the form or quality of the land (土地の形質の変更), to build a building or construct other structures, where doing so risks obstructing the project, and to place or store hard to move objects specified by Cabinet Order. There is no counterpart to Article 54 here: no condition obliges the authority to approve anything, and Article 65, paragraph 2 requires it to hear the 施行者's views before granting permission at all. In practice, once the project is authorised, assume you will not be building.

Transfers tighten too. Article 67, paragraph 1 requires anyone intending to transfer 土地建物等 inside the 事業地 for value, more than ten days after the Article 66 public notice, to notify the 施行者 in writing with the intended price and counterparty; paragraph 2 deems a sale at that price if the 施行者 gives notice within thirty days, and paragraph 3 forbids transfer in the meantime, with the same early release as Article 57: the period ends when the 施行者 gives notice that it will not buy. Article 67, paragraph 1 carries the Cultural Properties Protection Act Article 46 exception as well, on the same reasoning, though it has no counterpart to Article 57's land plus building carve out. The land plus building carve out that exists in Article 57 is absent here: Article 67 says 土地建物等, land and buildings. So in the project phase an ordinary house and land sale does carry the notification duty, where in the planning phase it did not.

The project phase also brings a purchase claim of its own, on much narrower terms than the Article 56 one. Article 68, paragraph 1 lets the owner of land inside the 事業地 whose expropriation procedure has been reserved under Article 31 of the Expropriation of Land Act, applied through Article 69, request that the 施行者 buy that land at market value. The proviso cuts it down sharply: the claim does not arise where the land is the object of another person's right, nor where there is a building or other structure on it, nor where there is 立木 within Article 1, paragraph 1 of the Standing Timber Act. It is therefore a route for bare, unencumbered land inside a project whose expropriation has been deferred, not a general exit for an owner who wants out. Article 68, paragraph 2 has the price settled by agreement between the 施行者 and the owner.

One limit on the whole three phase picture, and it matters for how you read a negative answer. These are the three states the City Planning Act itself can put the land in, so they tell you which restriction applies. They do not tell you whether the road is coming. Article 4, paragraph 15 defines a 都市計画事業 as one carried out under an Article 59 authorisation, so a road built as an ordinary road project instead, or delivered through a land readjustment project, produces no Article 62 public notice and never engages Article 65: the parcel sits in phase one while work is genuinely under way nearby. Land readjustment brings a restriction of its own rather than none, under Article 76 of the Land Readjustment Act, which from the relevant public notice until the Article 103, paragraph 4 notice requires permission to change the form or quality of the land, or to build, rebuild or extend a building or other structure, inside the 施行地区. That restriction is a mandatory disclosure item too, under Article 3, paragraph 1, item 8 of the Enforcement Order. An ordinary road project brings one of its own, and it is stricter than Article 53. Once the road administrator has determined the road area under Article 18, paragraph 1 of the Road Act, Article 91, paragraph 1 forbids anyone, until the road is opened to use, from changing the form or quality of the land, from newly building, rebuilding, extending or substantially repairing a structure, and from adding or placing objects inside that area without the administrator's permission. It says so expressly even before the administrator has acquired any rights in the land, and there is no Article 54 style duty to approve. So a parcel can sit in phase one under the City Planning Act and inside a 道路予定区域 under the Road Act at the same time, with the stricter rule governing. Ask about the restriction and the programme separately.

It must be disclosed in a sale, but only in a sale through a licensed agent

Article 35, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act (宅地建物取引業法) requires a licensed real estate business, before the contract is concluded, to have a 宅地建物取引士 deliver and explain a written outline of restrictions under the City Planning Act, the Building Standards Act and other laws, as prescribed by Cabinet Order. Article 3, paragraph 1, item 1 of the Enforcement Order then lists the City Planning Act provisions this covers, for contracts other than a lease, and four entries on that list track the three phases above exactly:

• Article 53, paragraph 1, the planning phase building permission.
• Article 57, paragraphs 2 and 4, the 事業予定地 transfer notification and its standstill.
• Article 65, paragraph 1, the project phase permission that replaces Article 53.
• Article 67, paragraphs 1 and 3, the project phase transfer notification and its standstill.

So ask for the section by the provision that matches the parcel's phase, rather than reaching for Article 53 by reflex. This matters most in an authorised project, where Article 53 is switched off altogether: a buyer who asks only about Article 53 can be told quite truthfully that there is no Article 53 restriction, and still walk into the Article 65 permission and the Article 67 standstill, both of which the agent owes an explanation of. Two limits are worth holding onto. The duty attaches to a licensed business, so a genuinely direct sale between private parties with no agent carries none, which describes a good number of municipal akiya bank listings. And what the Act requires is an outline of the restriction, not an assessment of whether the road will ever be built or what it will do to your resale. For that you go to the municipality yourself.

What it does to the land's value

There is a formal valuation adjustment, and it is smaller than most owners expect.

The National Tax Agency's basic property valuation directive (財産評価基本通達), Article 24-7, covers a 宅地 part of which lies inside a 都市計画道路予定地, defined by reference to the road among the 都市計画施設 in Article 4, paragraph 6 of the City Planning Act. The land is valued at what it would be worth if that part were not inside the planned road area, multiplied by a correction rate from a table keyed to three things: the district classification, the floor area ratio, and the 地積割合, meaning the planned road part's share of the total lot area. Note which area that is: Article 8 of the same directive values land by its actual area at the valuation date, not by the registered area.

The range in that table is wide at one end and narrow at the other:

• Ordinary residential district (普通住宅地区), floor area ratio under 200%: 0.99 where the planned road part is under 30% of the lot, 0.98 where it is 30% to under 60%, and 0.97 where it is 60% or more. A one to three percent reduction.
• The same district at a higher floor area ratio: 0.97, 0.94 and 0.90 across those three bands from 200% up to 300%, and 0.94, 0.88 and 0.80 at 300% or above. So 3 to 10 percent, then 6 to 20 percent. The floor area ratio matters as much as the share of the lot.
• Office district or high grade commercial district (ビル街地区・高度商業地区), floor area ratio 700% or more: 0.85, 0.70 and 0.50 across the same three bands.

Two things follow. First, for a suburban house the adjustment is close to a rounding error, so this correction is not a meaningful tax saving. Second, this is a valuation rule for inheritance tax and gift tax only. Fixed asset tax (固定資産税) runs on a separate track: under Article 388, paragraph 1 and Article 403, paragraph 1 of the Local Tax Act the municipality determines the value under the nationally fixed 固定資産評価基準, not under the National Tax Agency's directive. Whether your municipality applies a correction for planned road land there is a question to put to it, and Article 24-7 does not answer it either way. Make sure you ask the right office: in Tokyo's 23 special wards it is not the ward. Article 734, paragraph 1 of the Local Tax Act has the Metropolis levy fixed asset tax across the area where the special wards exist, treating the Metropolis as a municipality for the purpose, so both the valuation and your enquiry belong to the metropolitan tax office. Neither rule says anything about what a buyer will actually pay you. The market discount on a parcel that cannot take the building the buyer wants is a separate question, and usually a larger one.

Here is how to check a specific parcel before you commit.

1. Get the lot number (地番). City planning documents and the GIS layers are mapped against parcels, so you need the lot number, not the postal address. Our free lot number lookup and the guide to finding a lot number cover this step.
2. Screen it on the map first. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism publishes a nationwide 都市計画決定GISデータ dataset, and its public map site, the Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ), carries a 都市計画道路 layer drawn from the current year's version of that dataset. The site has an English language toggle, which makes it the most practical first screen from overseas. Treat it as a screen and nothing more: MLIT's own description of the dataset says it was compiled from municipal city planning summary maps or GIS data, and that where a municipality supplied no data and the city plan had not changed since 1 April 2019, the 2018 National Land Numerical Information was used instead. Boundaries at map scale cannot tell you where the line falls on your lot.
3. Ask the municipality's city planning section. This is the authoritative check. The relevant documents are the ones Article 20, paragraph 2 requires to be available for public inspection. Contact the 都市計画課 (names vary: 都市整備課, 都市計画担当) with the municipality, district and lot number, and ask four things: whether a 都市計画道路 is fixed over the parcel, the planned width and its name or route number, which part of the lot the line covers and how much of the area it takes, and the date the plan was decided along with any later changes. Many municipalities will mark it on a copy of the city planning map for you, and many publish their own city planning viewer online.
4. Then ask the question that actually decides it: which phase is this in. The three states have completely different consequences, and a parcel's answer will be one of them. Ask explicitly: is this ordinary 都市計画施設区域 (Article 53, with the Article 54 duty to approve a removable two storey building); has the land been designated 事業予定地 under Article 55, paragraph 1 (permission can be refused, and the Article 56 buy out request becomes available); or has a project been authorised with an Article 62 public notice (Article 65 applies, the project execution period exists as a date, and Article 68 may give a buy out claim on bare unencumbered land whose expropriation has been reserved). Then ask two further questions, because a "no project authorised" answer is not the same as "nothing is happening": is the road programmed for construction by any route, including as an ordinary road project, and in particular has the road area been determined under Article 18 of the Road Act, which brings the stricter Article 91 permission; and is the parcel inside the 施行地区 of a land readjustment project, which carries its own permission requirement under Article 76 of the Land Readjustment Act. Do not accept "there is a plan" as an answer to this.
5. Describe your actual building, not your intention to build. The Article 54 duty turns on the building, not the plan. Ask whether the specific structure you have in mind clears item 3: two or fewer storeys, no basement, main structural parts of timber, steel frame or concrete block, and judged easily removable. If you want a three storey reinforced concrete house, or a basement, say so at this stage rather than after you own the land. If the house already standing on the lot predates the plan, ask separately what you may do with it, since reconstruction or relocation of a wooden building of two or fewer storeys with no basement is exempt under Article 37 of the Enforcement Order, while an extension is not.
6. Do not read "no progress since 1965" as "it will never happen". Roughly a fifth of Japan's planned road network is still neither improved nor substantially complete, and prefectures and municipalities periodically review long dormant lines, sometimes abolishing them and sometimes funding them. A dormant line restricts the land today whatever happens later, and the possibility of abolition is not something to pay extra for. Ask the municipality whether the line is under review, but treat the current legal position as the one you are buying.
7. If you are the seller, work out which of three notification regimes applies before you sign anything. In the ordinary facility area, with no designation, it is the Publicly Owned Land Act: Article 4, paragraph 1, item 1 catches a paid transfer of land of 200 square metres or more, or less where a local ordinance says so, and unlike the City Planning Act it does not exempt a sale of the land with its buildings. Where the Article 57 regime has been triggered instead, which for a planned road needs the facility to be inside a 市街化区域 or a 都市計画区域 with no 区域区分, a sale of bare land for value needs the written notification under Article 57, paragraph 2 and a standstill of up to thirty days, ended early by a notice that the authority will not buy, while a sale of land together with the buildings fixed on it is expressly excluded. Once a project is authorised, Article 67 drops that exclusion and catches land and buildings alike. Both articles step aside where Article 46 of the Cultural Properties Protection Act applies to the property, since the national pre-emption takes precedence, and Article 57 also steps aside once the Article 66 public notice has handed the parcel to Article 67, so you never owe both filings. Getting this wrong stalls a closing, so confirm which article applies with the municipality rather than reasoning from the general rule.
8. Ask for the 重要事項説明 section by the right provision, and do not stop there. Where a licensed agent is involved the mandatory disclosure list covers Article 53, paragraph 1 and Article 57, paragraphs 2 and 4, Article 65, paragraph 1, and Article 67, paragraphs 1 and 3, so name the one that matches the phase you established in step 4. Asking only about Article 53 on an authorised project invites a truthful "no Article 53 restriction" that leaves the Article 65 permission and the Article 67 standstill unmentioned. Where the sale is direct, nobody owes you the explanation. Either way the outline is an outline: it will not tell you how much of your lot the strip takes or whether your planned house clears the Article 54 test.
9. Put the answer in the contract. If the purchase depends on being able to build a particular house, make the contract conditional on written confirmation from the municipality, with a deadline. A verbal assurance that "the road was cancelled years ago" is not a substitute for the public inspection documents.

The most common mistake is treating a planned road as a zoning matter and expecting to find it in the register or on a zoning map. It is neither: it is a facility fixed in a city plan, recorded in documents the municipality must let you inspect. The second mistake is the opposite overreaction, assuming a planned road means the land is unusable. In phase one the law obliges the authority to approve a removable two storey building, which is why so many of these lots have perfectly ordinary houses on them. The question is never "is there a line" alone. It is which phase, how much of the lot, and whether your building clears Article 54.

What the property registration record can and cannot tell you here:

• What it shows reliably: the lot number, the registered land category, the registered area, the registered owner recorded in the 甲区, and any mortgages, seizures or other registered rights, all as of the date of the record. Registered owner, not necessarily current owner: ownership passes to heirs on death whether or not anyone files, so a record can still name someone who died decades ago. How To Check If A Japanese Property Has Unregistered Inheritance covers that gap, and it matters here because the person you need an answer from about the planned line is whoever can actually sell you the land. For a parcel under a planned line the registered area is where the 地積割合 conversation starts, but it is not the figure the tax rule runs on: Article 8 of the basic property valuation directive values land by its actual area at the valuation date. A gap between the registered and the surveyed area can therefore move the parcel into a different correction band, as well as changing how much of the lot you are actually losing. Treat the registered figure as the starting point and the survey as the answer: see How To Check Registered Vs Actual Land Area In Japan.
• What it does not show: whether a 都市計画道路 is fixed over the parcel, its planned width, which part of the lot it covers, whether the land has been designated 事業予定地, or whether a project has been authorised and when it is meant to finish. None of that lives in the property register. It lives in the city plan documents the prefecture and municipality must make available under Article 20, paragraph 2, and, for an authorised project, in the Article 62 public notice and the documents the municipal mayor keeps for inspection under Article 62, paragraph 2.
• What you should not expect the register to hint at either: unlike some restrictions, a planned road leaves no trace in the register at all. There is no land category that signals it and no entry in the 権利部. A clean record is entirely consistent with a four lane road drawn across the lot.
• How to order the record: use the free lot number lookup to identify the parcel, then order the land registration record for ¥1,500. If there is a building on the land, order the building record too, since land and buildings are registered separately, and on a planned road strip the building's registered structure and number of storeys are worth having in writing. Both are delivered by email and saved to your account. Our guide to ordering registration records in English explains the process.

The registration record is the right first step because it gives you the lot number, the registered area, the ownership position and the encumbrances you need before approaching the municipality. It is not a substitute for the city planning documents. Run both, and put the result in your due diligence checklist alongside road frontage, boundaries and zoning. Two related checks belong next to this one: whether the lot can be rebuilt on at all, in How To Check If A Japanese Property Is Rebuildable, and what the zoning and hazard maps say, in How To Check Zoning And Hazard Maps In Japan.

Where a line crosses the parcel and your plans depend on the building you can put there, confirm the position in writing with the municipality's city planning section before you sign, and take the boundary and area questions that follow to a land and house investigator (土地家屋調査士) specifically. Article 3, item 1 of the Land and House Investigator Act gives that profession the investigation and survey of land and buildings needed for the registration of a property's physical description, which is the work of establishing where the line actually falls on your lot. A judicial scrivener (司法書士) is the one to use for the title and rights side, their own Article 3 covering representation in registration procedure, and is not a substitute for the survey.

FAQ

What does 都市計画道路 mean? A road fixed in a city plan under the City Planning Act. Article 11, paragraph 1, item 1 lets a city plan fix roads as urban facilities, and Article 4, paragraph 6 makes a facility so fixed a 都市計画施設. The line has a width, a route and a decision date. It may be a wholly new route, or a widening plan laid over a road that already exists and reserving a strip beside it, which is the kind owners overlook. And it may not have been carried out: about a fifth of the national planned network is neither improved to the planned standard nor substantially complete.

Can I build on land covered by a planned city road? In most cases yes, but not anything you like. Article 53, paragraph 1 requires permission from the prefectural governor, or the city mayor where the land is in a city. Article 54 then obliges the authority to grant it where the building has two or fewer storeys and no basement, has main structural parts of timber, steel frame, concrete block or a similar structure, and is judged easily relocated or removed. A three storey reinforced concrete house or anything with a basement falls outside item 3, so it would have to rely on one of the two special cases in items 1 and 2, and otherwise the authority owes no duty to approve it.

Do I need permission to rebuild the existing house? Reconstruction or relocation of a wooden building with two or fewer storeys and no basement is exempt as a minor act, under Article 53, paragraph 1, item 1 with Article 37 of the Enforcement Order. New construction and extension fall outside that exemption and need permission, unless the parcel happens to sit in one of the narrow cases in items 4 and 5 of Article 53, paragraph 1.

Does the restriction stop me regrading or digging the land? Not in the planning phase. Article 53 restricts building a building and nothing else. Once a project has been authorised and the Article 62 public notice published, Article 65, paragraph 1 is much wider and catches changing the form or quality of the land, other structures, and placing hard to move objects.

Can I make the city buy my land? There are two routes and both are narrow. In the planning phase it needs the land to have been designated 事業予定地 under Article 55, paragraph 1; Article 56, paragraph 1 then lets the owner request a purchase on the ground that refusing building permission would seriously impair the land's use, and the authority shall buy at market value absent special circumstances. In an ordinary planned facility area with no such designation there is no right to compel a purchase, though Article 5 of the Publicly Owned Land Act lets the owner of such land notify the authority that they would like it bought, through the same channel as the Article 4 filing and subject to the same 200 square metre floor. That is an offer, not a right: nothing obliges the authority to buy. Once a project is authorised, Article 68, paragraph 1 adds a claim against the 施行者 at market value, but only for land whose expropriation procedure has been reserved, and not where the land carries another person's right, a building or other structure, or 立木.

Can I sell a property that has a planned road over it? Yes, and these parcels change hands routinely. Three notification regimes exist and they run in sequence, so exactly one applies. In the ordinary facility area the Publicly Owned Land Act does: Article 4, paragraph 1, item 1 requires notification of a paid transfer of land of 200 square metres or more, a floor a local ordinance can lower, and it does not exempt a sale of the land with its buildings. On designated 事業予定地, where the Article 57 public notice has been made, which for a planned road requires the facility to be inside a 市街化区域 or a 都市計画区域 with no 区域区分, selling bare land for value requires written notification under Article 57, paragraph 2 and a standstill of up to thirty days, which ends early if the authority gives notice that it will not buy. Selling the land together with the buildings fixed on it is expressly excluded. Once a project is authorised, Article 67 requires notification for land and buildings alike, and Article 57 steps aside so you never owe both. Both articles exempt property subject to Article 46 of the Cultural Properties Protection Act, where the national pre-emption applies instead. Confirm which applies with the municipality before you sign.

Will the agent tell me? If a licensed real estate business is involved, yes, and the duty reaches further than the planning phase. Article 35, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act with Article 3, paragraph 1, item 1 of its Enforcement Order makes Article 53, paragraph 1, Article 57, paragraphs 2 and 4, Article 65, paragraph 1 and Article 67, paragraphs 1 and 3 all mandatory items, so ask by the provision that matches the parcel's phase. In a direct private sale with no agent, nobody owes you that explanation.

Does a planned road reduce my tax? For inheritance and gift tax there is a formal correction under Article 24-7 of the National Tax Agency's basic property valuation directive, but the size depends on the floor area ratio as well as on how much of the lot the strip takes. In an ordinary residential district below 200% it is one to three percent; from 200% up to 300% it is 3 to 10 percent, and at 300% or above 6 to 20 percent. It is calculated on the land's actual area rather than its registered area. Fixed asset tax is a separate regime: the municipality determines that value under the 固定資産評価基準 (Local Tax Act, Article 388, paragraph 1 and Article 403, paragraph 1), so ask the municipality whether it applies a correction for planned road land, because Article 24-7 does not answer it. If the property is in one of Tokyo's 23 special wards, ask the metropolitan tax office instead: Article 734, paragraph 1 has the Metropolis levy the tax there rather than the ward. The market effect of not being able to build what a buyer wants is usually far larger than either adjustment.

Where do I look it up? Start with the Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ), MLIT's public map site, which has a 都市計画道路 layer and an English toggle. Then confirm with the municipality's city planning section against the documents it must make available for public inspection under Article 20, paragraph 2. The property register will not tell you.

How long can a plan sit there? Indefinitely. Lines decided in the 1950s and 1960s are still unbuilt, and the restriction runs from the day of the public notice under Article 20, paragraph 3 for as long as the plan stands. Municipalities do review and sometimes abolish dormant lines, but the restriction applies in full until they do.

Ready to check a parcel? Find the lot number with the free lot number lookup, order the land registration record for ¥1,500 to confirm the registered owner, area and encumbrances, then take the lot number to the municipality's city planning section for the planned road position.

• e-Gov: City Planning Act (都市計画法), Act No. 100 of 1968, current text. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. Articles 4 (definitions of 都市計画施設 and 建築), 11 (urban facilities, roads), 20 (public notice, public inspection, effective date), 26 (definition of 都道府県知事等), 53 (building permission), 54 (criteria the authority must apply), 55 (事業予定地 and refusal), 56 (land purchase request), 57 (pre-emption on bare land), 62 (project authorisation notice and inspection), 65 (restrictions in an authorised project area), 66 and 67 (pre-emption on land and buildings), 68 (purchase claim on land whose expropriation is reserved).
• e-Gov: Order for Enforcement of the City Planning Act (都市計画法施行令), Cabinet Order No. 158 of 1969, Article 37. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The minor act exempt from Article 53 permission: reconstruction or relocation of a wooden building of two or fewer storeys with no basement.
• e-Gov: Building Standards Act (建築基準法), Article 2. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. Definition of 建築 (item 13) and of 主要構造部 (item 5).
• e-Gov: Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act (宅地建物取引業法), Article 35. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The important matters explanation.
• e-Gov: Order for Enforcement of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act (宅地建物取引業法施行令), Article 3, paragraph 1, item 1. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. City Planning Act Articles 53(1), 57(2) and (4), 65(1) and 67(1) and (3) named among the restrictions that must be explained.
• National Tax Agency: Basic property valuation directive (財産評価基本通達), Article 24-7. National Tax Agency, official. Valuation of residential land inside a planned city road area, and the correction rate table.
• National Tax Agency: Basic property valuation directive (財産評価基本通達), Article 8. National Tax Agency, official. Land is valued by its actual area at the valuation date, which is the area the 地積割合 is calculated on.
• e-Gov: Local Tax Act (地方税法), Article 388, paragraph 1, Article 403, paragraph 1 and Article 734, paragraph 1. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. Fixed asset tax is valued by the municipality under the 固定資産評価基準 set by the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, separately from the National Tax Agency directive, and in the area of Tokyo's special wards the Metropolis levies it in place of the ward.
• e-Gov: Act on Promotion of Expansion of Publicly Owned Land (公有地の拡大の推進に関する法律), Articles 4, 5, 6 and 8 and its Enforcement Order, Articles 3 and 4. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The transfer notification that applies in the ordinary planned facility area, its 200 square metre floor and the ordinance power to lower it, the exclusions that make the three regimes sequential, and the owner's purchase request under Article 5.
• e-Gov: Road Act (道路法), Articles 18 and 91. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The 道路予定区域 restriction, which applies once the road area is determined and before the administrator acquires the land.
• e-Gov: Land Readjustment Act (土地区画整理法), Article 76. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The separate building and land alteration permission inside a land readjustment project area.
• e-Gov: Cultural Properties Protection Act (文化財保護法), Articles 46 and 83. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. The national pre-emption that displaces the City Planning Act notification under Articles 57 and 67.
• e-Gov: Land and House Investigator Act (土地家屋調査士法), Article 3 and Judicial Scrivener Act (司法書士法), Article 3. Digital Agency e-Gov law database, official. Which profession does boundary and area survey work, and which does registration procedure.
• MLIT: City planning status survey (都市計画現況調査). Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, official. Annual survey of city planning decisions, as of 31 March each year.
• MLIT: 2025 city planning status survey results (令和7年都市計画現況調査). Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, official. Planned road length 70,960.7 km, 改良済 48,572.5 km, 概成済 8,197.4 km, as of 31 March 2025.
• MLIT: definitions used in the city planning status survey. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, official. 改良済 is land secured to the planned width and in general public use; 概成済 is a section whose existing road performs roughly the same function, needing about two thirds of the planned width or four lanes or more.
• MLIT: City planning decision GIS data, national download page (都市計画決定GISデータ 全国データダウンロードページ). Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, official. How the national dataset was compiled, and its limits.
• MLIT: Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ). Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, official. Public map site carrying the 都市計画道路 layer, with an English language toggle.