ABSTRACT
This chapter describes briefly the devastation in Iwate Prefecture caused by the tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and spatial planning in the legal regime for reconstruction. It focuses on the reconstruction of housing from temporary dwellings to permanent homes, identifying factors causing its delay, the suspension of projects due to matters related to contracts and some legal responses in order to speed up housing reconstruction. On these observations, attention turns to the discussion about the legal regime under the due process of law. Building-Back-Better (BBB) has attracted global attention since the reconstruction of Aceh, Indonesia from the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in December 2004. Therefore, the chapter focuses on some of the new enactments after the GEJE. The regime of disaster law for reconstruction, by contrast, is expected to work in the context of incident management.
