The PLU (local urban plan): an instrument for extending heritage protection?

Abstract

This article is based on the findings of a research project into French local development plans (PLUs) that incorporate heritage issues and policies. The purpose of the project was to inventory the ways local authorities use tools to identify and protect heritage when drawing up their PLUs. We here conduct comparative analysis of the PLUs drafted by several city authorities, supplemented by interviews and field analysis with those involved in drawing them up. This analysis shows that heritage is an obligatory component of a PLU, generally connected with other issues, and that its importance may vary depending on stakeholder’s ambitions concerning heritage policy. Various stakeholders are involved in drawing up PLUs and in defining heritage, which may lead to an expansion in type and geographical coverage. With heritage being taken up in local development plans, it tends to be thought of in more immaterial terms, bringing it closer to the ideas of lived environment and landscape. This project also examined written regulations, revealing major differences in the levels of constraint and protection imposed by PLUs; it also looked at how PLUs are linked to specific planning tools to protect heritage. In some cases, heritage is so fully part of a PLU that it may be deemed to be a “heritage PLU”, undeniably enriching the panoply of legal and regulatory instruments for identifying and preserving heritage.

Keywords

• urban planning
• heritage
• local development plan
• urban planning law
• France