Land use plan recognition
The 24-month period during which a land use plan is put back into effect after the cancellation or declaration of illegality of a local urban development plan, an urban planning document in its place, or a communal map, extends to cancellations or declarations of illegality prior to Act No. 2018-1021 of 23 November 2018 which introduced it. In this case, the period runs from the date of entry into force of the law. The Conseil d’Etat notes that the Council of State, thus explaining this delayed departure, does not provide for any retroactivity. As for the application of the law to annulments or declarations of illegality that predate it, it is not explicitly justified. Nevertheless, it is a factor that simplifies the reading of the reform. Before it, the “Land use Plan” thus reinstated, for an indefinite period, could be revised within two years of the annulment or declaration of illegality, whereas it is now untouchable during its 24-month validity. Another interpretation would thus have led, after 25 November 2018, to the coexistence, at least temporarily, of the “Land use Plan”, whether or not they could be revised, depending on whether the annulment or declaration of illegality from which they were derived was pronounced before or after that date. Above all, it would have permitted the indefinite maintenance of the “Land use Plan” in disregard of the purpose of the reform, and the encouragement of the adoption of new town planning documents after a cancellation or declaration of illegality.
After the 24-month period, the national town planning regulations apply in the absence of an enforceable PLU or communal card, adding the new provisions of the law, which amend Article L. 174-6 of the Town Planning Code.
CE, avis, 3 avr. 2020, n° 436549, extract : (…) 2. The provisions of article 34 of the law of 23 November 2018 amending article L. 174-6 of the town planning code are, in the absence of express provisions to the contrary, immediately applicable and came into force on 25 November 2018, one day after the publication of the law in the Journal Officiel (…)