Commentary: Sustainable development and the aims of planning, à la française

Abstract

Late in 2000 a new planning and urban policy law was approved by the French parliament-the law on solidarity and urban regeneration-Solidarite et Renouvellement Urbain or SRU. The law, which came into force in 2001, has as its name implies the broad aim of promoting social solidarity-a term that is best understood as a sense of fairness and harmony-and the regeneration of French cities rather than their continued spread into the countryside. The law has caused a small revolution in parts of France as it has brought local 'communes', generally no more than parishes, together in larger administrative groupings and has, in addition, required all communes to house a proportion of their population in the form of social housing, or face a fine for failing to do so (Devereux, 2002). In addition, and much less widely noted either in France or the UK, the SRU law has introduced significant innovations in the French development plan system and has done this partly in the name of sustainable development. As this presentation will document, these innovations are of potential interest to planners elsewhere in the world and especially in the UK. There are direct parallels, as well as contrasts, between the reforms included in the SRU law and the proposals for the reform of the planning system, as stated in Sustainable Communities (ODPM, 2002). Moreover, the French experience shows a way forward in current planning debates about sustainable development, ethics and the aims of planning, as represented by recent contributions to planning theory (Campbell, 2002; Upton, 2002) and recent policy and consultation documents of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI, 2002a). It shows a possible way forward, while also warning against pushing theoretical debates on ethics, values and aims too far without considering the political context. The French development plan system The significance of the SRU has to be appreciated in the light of the previous development plan system, established in the Land Law (loi d' orientation fonciere) of 1967 and which still remains in force until new plans are prepared. The system has two main tiers, a strategic level in the form of a Schema Directeur and a local level in the form of a Planned' Occupation des Sols (POS). This latter provides the basis for development control and, to a much greater extent than a British development plan, is a regulatory document. It seeks to define the rights of property owners in development and, in doing this, to reduce political discretion in the granting of planning permission. The political element of planning was confined to the contents of the POS and its adoption by a local council. Thereafter, the granting of planning permission, which from 1982 onwards has been the personal responsibility of the local maire, is undertaken in accordance with the law, that is to the POS and the national planning regulations. Appeal against refusal is considered, under French law, as an appeal against the legal basis of an administrative decision, not as a separate planning appeal. The POS itself consists of a detailed zoning exercise that specifies for each site what can and cannot be done in terms of land use, the provision of service networks (roads, sewers and water run-off), the surface area of buildings, the relation of the building to the street, to the neighbourhood and to other properties, height, the external envelope and design, car parking requirements, private garden space requirements, density and infrastructure payments if the density is exceeded. The usual British criticism of French town planning is that it is too bureaucratic and rigid. Rigidity has not figured strongly as a criticism within France, partly because the rigidity of the POS depends on the precise contents of the regulatory mix and, in addition, because the provisions of the POS can be overridden by an action area procedure called the Zone d'Amenagement Concerte (ZAC) which also provides a way of levering funds from private developers and the state in infrastructure and regeneration projects. …