The town planning documents are instruments that are well placed to anticipate orientations and programming at the initiative of the elected representatives involved in the public consultation process.
The PADD – the Sustainable Development Plan, which is a component part of the PLU (Legislation dated 13/12/2000), is no longer opposable to the authorisations granted to land use plans (Legislation dated 2/7/2003), but the planning regulations and guidelines set out in the PLU must be compatible with the PADD.
As a political orientation document for a given territory, it sets out the PLU’s town planning project. In this sense, the PADD may envisage the orientations required for the integration of the evolution of the ageing process, both for public spaces and mobility within the areas covered by the plan, as well as for housing.
The town planning documents, the SCoT, PADD, PLU, PDU and the programming document, the PLH, are public instruments that make it possible to organise territories around major subjects such as demography.
Benefitting from a wide partnership, they organised coordinated interventions for the built environment and for home services so as to help the elderly to be able to remain at home in a given territory.
This may be illustrated by the example of the cooperation between the professional order of architects and the FFB (French Building Federation) to propose a means to take shopping or heavy articles upstairs in a building that does not have an elevator, even though the elderly residents are still able to use the stairs to go up two or three floors at their own pace. These are situations that are often encountered and that sometimes mean that people have to move, even in cases in which the adaptation of the building would provide more comfortable living condition (including for families with small children) and greater safety. A partnership between elected representatives, the authorities responsible for residential property and professionals is necessary in order to carry out work that goes beyond regular practice.
Whilst this was broadly endorsed during the hearings, the implementation of this proposal will require particular attention.
There are many economic activities present on this new market of demographic change to keep the elderly in their own home as long as possible in an environment that provides comfort, aesthetic value and a safety of use.
Consequently, the research and development carried out by each sector justifies the creation of an association between them. The association could be created under the aegis of the Secretary of State for Housing and the following economic sectors could participate: building, lighting and domestic electrical appliances, furniture, telecommunications and energy and they could be joined by experts who are currently carrying out technical research such as the CSTB or market research companies2, as well as social housing associations and property developers.
At the European level, a network of industrialists, enterprises and R&D institutions was created in April 2009 with the European Commission in order to carry out research in the field of the development of energy efficiency for buildings as part of the economic recovery plan. The B2B network operates as a public-private partnership with the European Commission. Its members include enterprises such as Bouygues, Acciona, Saint Gobain, EDF, etc. The objective is to carry out research into energy efficiency with a view to establishing a market of green products to be operational within the next 10 years.
For the purposes of this proposal, these reference points of housing and ageing may be included in the approaches adopted by AGENDA 21 and their evaluation procedures.
1 Law on equal opportunities, rights, participation and citizenship for persons with a disability
2 Such as Giesbert Associés, Opinion Way or Ipsos
