Michel Barnier announces that he will support a text to relax constraints

The implementation of “zero net land artificialization” aims to combat concreteization and stop urban sprawl by 2050.

Michel Barnier announced, Wednesday, November 20, that the government would support a bill aimed at relaxing the implementation of “zero net artificialization of soils” (ZAN) to fight against concreteization, promising to find “a path” between “fundamental sobriety” et “territorial needs”.

“Legislation and regulations confine mayors in a straightjacket and (…) they can no longer carry out this mission which is also theirs, of being builder mayors” et “we will support” the proposal of senators Jean-Baptiste Blanc (Les Républicains) and Guislain Cambier (Centrist Union), declared the Prime Minister before the Senate, during questions to the government.

This text “will allow us to make adjustments and relaxations, always with pragmatism, on the application of the ZAN”which aims to stop urban sprawl by 2050, added Michel Barnier. But “we will also have to ensure that the objective remains effective”, insisted the Prime Minister, while the flagship measure of the senatorial proposal intends to remove an intermediate objective aimed at halving the rate of artificialization during the decade 2021-2031 compared to the previous decade.

While awaiting examination of the senatorial proposal, the Prime Minister promised to take “several provisions to provide flexibility even before the vote on this text”. He thus invited the prefects “to take advantage of the so-called 20% circular which allows additional margins to be given to communities that need them immediately”, promised to “also modify the decrees so that suburban gardens are no longer considered as artificial surfaces” and take into account new projects “national and European in scope”.