at the Congress of Mayors, elected officials relieved by the announcement of a loosening of the system

Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced on Wednesday the easing of the ZAN regulatory framework via a new law. Many elected officials met at the Congress of Mayors of France welcome this flexibility.

Giving back room for maneuver to mayors by lightening the regulatory framework of ZAN (zero net artificialization of land), this is what Michel Barnier announced on Wednesday November 20. The government will support a bill aimed at making its implementation more flexible, the Prime Minister declared before the Senate.

To combat concrete development, the ZAN law provides for the end of land development in 2050. But local authorities must already have halved their land consumption by 2031. A constraint for many mayors who, in fact, do not cannot welcome new inhabitants into their territory. This relaxation is therefore a relief for many elected officials met at the Congress of Mayors which is currently being held in Paris.

This is the case of Hubert du Plessis, the mayor of Avessac, a small town in Loire-Atlantique. “It must be recognized that the population has declined a little, to 2 450 habitants.” So finding more flexibility to exercise his role as building mayor, the elected official can only be in favor of it. “We don't want to become municipalities where nothing happens other than agriculture, so we need to renew our population and be able to welcome new families. The municipality is life, it must live! We all agree to spare all natural spaces, real natural agricultural and forest areas, that is to say outside the town.”

Lampaul-Ploudalmézeau is a “very pretty coastal town but also rural”describes Anne Apprioual, the mayor of this small town of 850 inhabitants in Finistère. She too can only approve of seeing the ZAN's shackles loosen. “When land becomes scarce, it necessarily becomes much less affordable, observe-t-elle. This therefore means that, for municipalities of the size of ours, we were obliged to tell ourselves that we no longer had the means to develop at all if we took the approach of zero net artificialization literally.”

The Prime Minister also suggests changing the name of the ZAN system to symbolize this “new state of mind”, he justifies. Michel Barnier is expected on Thursday for the last day of this Congress of Mayors, where he is going accompanied by 14 ministers.