7. Planning Appeals in France

1. 7.1. Planning Appeal Process
2. 7.2. Recours Administratif
3. 7.3. Recours Contentieux
4. 7.4. Breach of Planning Consent

7.1. Planning Appeal Process

If you wish to contest a planning application or planning decision you are going to need to be nimble on your feet.

Unfortunately, the process of considering most planning applications and challenging a consent is not as open in France as it is in the UK.

7.1.1. Challenging a Planning Application

There is no obligatory prior notification to neighbours of a planning application. Neither is there necessarily an open council meeting where the application is considered.

Indeed, you are not even entitled to view the planning application until the decision has been made as it is regarded as private!

The only public information requirement for a planning application is for the mairie to display a notice of the application, giving only the most basic information, outside of the town hall within 15 days of its receipt by them.

However, if you do not happen to see the notice outside of the mairie, or you are not otherwise made aware of it, then you may know nothing about it until contractors arrive on the site!

If the development happens to be in an adjoining commune then it is even less likely you will get to know about it, unless that is the local French community are up in arms about it.

Needless to say, major development proposals are likely to become widely known locally, and a protest group may have been established.

In addition, for certain industrial, agricultural and commercial developments, a public enquiry must be held.

7.1.2. Challenging a Planning Decision

It is possible to legally contest an actual planning consent or refusal.

When a planning decision is made the mairie should place a notice of the decision outside the village/town hall, and the applicant is also obliged to place a notice on the site.

If there is a delay in erecting the notice, then the two-month period does not run until the date of the notice is displayed.

The mairie are also obliged to display the notice outside the town hall, but any delay by them to do so does not stop the clock running!

Responsibility for proving the notice has been displayed in accordance with the rules lies with the applicant, one reason why many applicants use a huissier (official bailiff) to display the notice or witness it being displayed.

A failure to properly display the notice does not provide you with grounds on which to oppose the planning decision. It merely permits you the opportunity to contest the application, for which you need to demonstrate that it does not comply with planning regulations.

The local mairie are legally obliged to provide you with access to the documentation relating to the planning decision to provide copies if you so request, for which a fee may be payable.

You might be surprised at the difficulties some people find in getting these documents from a local council.

Accordingly, you may need to be persistent about the whole process. If there appears to be resistance then send the request by recorded delivery letter, or engage professional assistance.

7.1.3. Procedure

There are two formal procedures you can use to contesting a planning decision:

1. i. Recours Administratif
2. ii. Recours Contentieux

We review these two procedures in the next section.

Both can also be used to oppose a local or regional plan.

Whichever process you take, in a country governed largely through protest, it pays to try and act on a collective basis with neighbours if they also have an interest in the matter.

However, be careful, for a new association formed for the purpose of challenging a planning decision has no legal right to do so; the association must already be registered with the préfecture as a bone fide organisation prior to the planning application have been posted on the notice board of the mairie.

This is a relatively new rule, aimed at reducing the number of challenges to planning decisions, and it has resulted in a number of appeals being thrown out in the courts.

Whichever approach you take you will need to get advice and assistance from an architect and/or an avocat specialising in planning law, as a detailed examination of planning rules will be required.

You might be amazed at the number of occasions when a case has been lost, simply because of professional negligence/incompetence by the architect or avocat taking the case.

You will need to demonstrate that there has been non-compliance with the rules or procedures. You cannot contest on grounds of design, unless the regulations on design have been breached.

As there is often an absence of detailed planning rules, so it becomes more difficult to finds grounds on which the decision should be quashed!

Neither can you contest the decision merely because the new development has an adverse impact on the value of your own property.

Similarly, you would not be able to contest a planning approval merely on the grounds that it spoilt a view you enjoyed from your property. It would need to have a wider adverse environmental impact.

7.1.4. Civil Action

If planning consent was obtained and your neighbour is acting in accordance with the consent, then, separately from your rights under planning law, you still have the right to bring a civil action on grounds of nuisance or breach of a servitude.

In relation to nuisance you will need to prove that the nuisance is 'excessive' and 'abnormal' and that, as a result, it has caused you harm. The right to bring an action lasts for five years from start of the nuisance.

In relation to a breach of servitude, or other entrenched property right, then the right to bring a civil legal action lasts for 30 years.