Note: In the following text, the City of Aachen aims to summarize the essential, primarily legal, framework conditions for urban land-use planning. The aim is to present the complex regulations in a way that is understandable for interested non-experts, i.e. to make a contribution to public information. These explanations cannot claim to be a complete presentation of the legal regulations. Only the regulations in the Federal Building Code and the supplementary legal norms are legally relevant.
Urban land-use planning is an instrument for controlling the spatial development of the municipality. It consists of two types of plan:
- The land use plan is the preparatory land-use plan and defines the type of land use (various types of residential areas, commercial areas, traffic, green spaces, etc.) for the entire municipal area.
- as binding urban land-use plans and based on the land-use plan, the development plans contain binding and specific stipulations for the use of these areas for individual areas
Urban land-use planning is part of municipal planning sovereignty in accordance with Article 28 of the Basic Law. The legal provisions on urban land-use planning can mainly be found in Sections 1-13a of the Federal Building Code (BauGB).
"The task of urban land-use plans is to prepare and guide the structural and other use of land in the municipality [...]." (Section 1 (1) BauGB)
Urban land-use plans should be drawn up "as soon as and insofar as it is necessary for urban development and order" (Section 1 (3) sentence 1 BauGB).
The aim of urban land-use planning is to ensure "sustainable urban development that reconciles social, economic and environmental requirements, also in responsibility towards future generations, and socially equitable development that serves the common good". (Section 1 (5) sentence 1 BauGB) This also means that potential conflicts must be resolved as far as possible as part of urban land-use planning.
The preparation, amendment and revocation of urban land-use plans follow the procedural steps and rules laid down in the German Building Code. Certain participation steps must also be carried out (see Participation). Environmental concerns play a special role, which are usually expressed in an environmental report for each urban land-use plan procedure.
The urban land-use plans, especially the development plans, provide a basis for the permissibility of construction projects and for the use of other legal instruments.
Another legal standard that is of particular importance for urban land use planning is the German Land Use Ordinance (BauNVO). Based on Section 9a of the German Building Code (BauGB), this nationwide legal regulation contains statements on, for example, how types of use can be assigned to one another or how densely buildings can be built.
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