Measures to make the Community of Madrid more flexible in the field of town planning

The Draft Bill on urgent measures to boost economic activity and modernise the Administration of the Community of Madrid was approved by the Community's Governing Council on 16 February 2022 and is currently in the parliamentary procedure before the Assembly of Madrid.

One of the main axes of this Bill is to adapt the regulation on urban planning and the environment, providing it with a flexible regulatory framework that favours business dynamism in a way that is compatible with environmental protection.

This analysis focuses on the measures for the improvement of territorial and urban development planning contained in its Title II, which aim to (i) adapt its regulation to basic state legislation, (ii) promote economic activity, (iii) adapt urban development activity to the new social and economic realities, (iv) eliminate unnecessary urban development burdens and (v) modernise administrative organisation.

Article 4 amends Law 9/1995, of 28 March 1995, on Territorial Policy, Land and Town Planning Measures, establishing a new, more flexible and simplified regulation of "Regional Scope Projects", which allows them to be adapted to current socio-economic needs, promoting strategic investments that lead to economic and employment growth.

Article 5 amends Law 9/2001 of 17 July 2001 on Land of the Community of Madrid, mainly in the following areas: (i) it establishes a new regulation for endowment actions, positivising the transfers of urban development use, (ii) it modifies the legal regime applicable to public land assets by extending their purposes, (iii) it modifies the regime of public networks to include vacant public housing in endowment land, (iv) the competences of municipalities for the definitive approval of modifications or corrections to urban planning are modified, (v) a new regulation of the public-private collaboration regime is established to improve the management of urban planning licences through private urban planning collaborating entities and (vi) the scope of actions on rural land, which currently make it impossible to develop compatible activities, is modified.

In terms of more specific measures, a new regulatory regime for public networks is introduced to allow for the inclusion of vacant public housing on vacant land without the need for a prior planning variation and municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants will also have the possibility, by means of a special plan, to approve corrections to their planning without the approval of the Community of Madrid.