A new decree of 30 measures aims to ease the rules for communities, with a target of 140 measures by the fall.
The government published on Tuesday July 28 in the Official Journal the second “mega-decree” to simplify the standards of local authorities and the action of the State in the territories. This text, which includes 30 measures, is part of the vast simplification project launched by the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, and aims to facilitate local management in various areas, including town planning, construction and housing, the environment and even internal security.
A multi-step simplification plan
This second “mega-decree” comes after a first “mega-decree” of 36 measures published in February, which notably contained the end of the obligation to empty municipal swimming pools annually. A bill to simplify community standards was also adopted in June by the Senate. The government is already preparing a third “mega-decree”, which should be published in the fall. “Next fall we will have 140 simplification measures,” the Minister of Regional Planning and Decentralization, Françoise Gatel, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The new decree provides in particular to increase from 1 to 3 megawatts the threshold from which a photovoltaic project must be subject to a systematic environmental assessment and a building permit, which will allow an annual saving of 465,000 euros for businesses, communities and the State.
In terms of social housing, the text excludes the prison population from the scope taken into account to calculate the share of HLM housing obligatory for a municipality, as defined in the law on solidarity and urban renewal (SRU).
The decree modifies several codes, in particular the general code of local authorities, the town planning code, the environment code and the customs code. “There are measures which allow a quantifiable economic gain and others which are more about efficiency, responsiveness and which give back the power to act, with very concrete things for mayors”, explains Françoise Gatel.
As part of the fight against substandard housing, the possibility is given to a mayor to replace a defaulting owner to carry out structural diagnostics on a building and thus ensure safety in housing.
The National Council for the Evaluation of Standards (CNEN), a consultative body composed mainly of representatives of local authorities, gave a favorable opinion on this decree.
A balance between simplification and guarantees
In May, the NGO France Nature Environnement denounced “regressions” concerning environmental law in the various texts on simplification, reindustrialization and massification of housing production defended by the government. “The simplification that we are making is not a removal of all these standards. It is not a question of preventing democratic recourse but of producing efficiency”, with a better “mix” of standards, defends the minister to AFP.
