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In a ruling handed down on July 27, 2012, the Council of State ruled that the provisions of a local planning document (former POS or PLU) which prohibit in principle or limit the faculty recognized for any owner to subdivide his land are illegal.
Their authors do not have jurisdiction to prohibit the faculty granted to owners to proceed, under the conditions provided for in Book IV of the Town Planning Code, to the division of landed properties with a view to the establishment of buildings, a faculty which contributes to the exercise of their right to dispose of their property.
The Council of State judges “that by prohibiting in principle allotments in one or more zones that it delimits, the regulations of a land use plan or a local urban plan enact rules which exceed those that the law authorizes him to prescribe”. Only the legislator can thus set the limits, prohibit in a general and absolute manner the creation of subdivisions in one or more zones.
He considers that this option is part of the exercise of the right to dispose of his property. Article 544 of the Civil Code provides that ownership is the right to enjoy and dispose of things in the most absolute manner and Article 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen qualifies ownership as ” inviolable and sacred right”.
This freedom, fundamental, facilitates the victory of the urban over the rural and the trivialization, the standardization, of the landscapes. The debate remains.
