What is rural space? Is this concept equivalent to rural land or non-development land? What characterises rural or non-development land, what are the criteria for defining it? What is or should be its functionality? What are the parameters that regulate the urban development of this land in urban development law? What is the content of the right to ownership of rural or non-development land? What does the power to build on it consist of within ownership rights? How is building on this class of land regulated?

Is the current situation in regards to the planning of rural or non-development land a suitable model? Are there alternatives? What requirements does a conceptual change in the existing model impose?

This study seeks to answer all these questions. Among other conclusions, it explains that we may speak of the obsolescence of the traditional conception of rural areas as a marginal and exclusively farming sphere, and that a turn toward a new, more positive conception is needed. There is also a clear need for functional renovation of rural spaces, which would require a new configuration of ownership rights over rural land that allows for the development of its individual utility and its social function: different situations, different legal concepts. The foregoing would lead to the development of a new planning model that would abandon previous concepts and procedures (inherited from the urban model) and would develop others based on a profound knowledge of the rural environment in every aspect (singularities and necessities) and from sustainable bases. In line with the foregoing, territorial and urban planning becomes a key instrument for achieving the designated objectives.