The requirements for the expiry of an immission control permit are also decisive for the expiry of the permits it replaces or includes. This is the result of a ruling by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) Lüneburg (Ref.: 12 ME 49/24 of 31 March 2025). The case concerned the immission control authorisation and the building permit included therein in accordance with Section 13 BImSchG for a shooting range.

The court has now ruled that an included (building) permit cannot become invalid before the immission control permit itself - i.e. not even before the time at which this expires due to lack of timely utilisation in accordance with Section 18 BImSchG. However, the OVG Lüneburg thus contradicts the case law of the Federal Administrative Court: The latter recently assumed that a building permit included in a BImSchG permit can expire independently if the relevant specialist law provides for this possibility (Ref.: 7 B 4/24 of 13.09.2024).

„Project sponsors, especially project developers in the wind energy sector, should not rely unchecked on the fact that construction or other concentrated authorisations continue to exist parallel to the BImSchG approval (Section 18 BImSchG). Despite the decision of the OVG Lüneburg, this is legally risky,“ says Rechtsanwalt Michael Liesegang.