Planning documents in Morocco: SDAU, plan d’aménagement, zoning, alignment

A plan d’aménagement reads like a contract between the town and each parcel: it says what you may do there, up to what height, how far from the street, and sometimes that you may do nothing because a school or a road is planned on it. Many buyers discover its clauses only at the permit refusal. This guide presents each planning document provided for by Law 12-90, its scope, its duration and how to access it, drawing on the general building regulation and on a reference analysis written by an urban-agency jurist. It complements the guide on the legal framework.

How do the documents fit together?

Among the innovations of Law 12-90, Hassan Chtouki notes “the notion of a hierarchy of planning documents”: the zoning plan and the plan d’aménagement must respect the master plan’s provisions on new urbanisation zones and the general destination of land. Other documents applicable to a territory covered by an SDAU “continue to produce their effects provided their provisions are compatible” with it.

What does the master plan set?

The SDAU “traces, over a twenty-five-year perspective, the main lines of integrated development of the territory to which it applies”, taking into account the conurbation, its area of influence and its hinterland. It stands “at the top of the hierarchy of planning documents”. Its preparation falls to the governmental authority in charge of planning, under article 9 of Law 12-90, and it is approved by decree. Once approved, it binds the State, public bodies and private-law legal persons whose capital is wholly public, which must conform to it in their programmes.

Reading an SDAU is also how you understand why a plan d’aménagement says what it says: the extension zones, the protected agricultural belts and the main road reservations are decided at this level, and the plan d’aménagement only details them.

For a private owner the SDAU is not the document opposed to a permit; but it announces future extension zones and major routes, which matters when buying land on the edge of a town.

What does the plan d’aménagement contain, and what does it impose on you?

The plan d’aménagement “is not a prospective act”: it “defines the right to use land through precise, immediately applicable rules”, implements the SDAU’s orientations over ten years and consists “of one or more drawings and a written document called the regulation”. Médias24 sums up its practical content: each zone comes with a regulation setting building height, density, alignment, setbacks, permitted and prohibited uses, and the plan “serves as the compulsory reference for issuing permits (building, subdividing, developing)”.

It is prepared on the initiative of the governmental planning authority, with the communes’ participation and subject to the urban agencies’ powers. The draft goes before a local committee, then into a one-month public inquiry during which owners and residents may submit observations, then before the communal council, before approval and publication in the Official Bulletin. Chtouki notes that under article 27 of Law 12-90, twelve months after the close of the public inquiry the document becomes unenforceable against the public, which explains why approval deadlines matter.

What is the zoning plan for?

The plan de zonage “makes it possible to define land use in the absence of a PA for a given sector”; hence “its transitional nature”. Prepared on the planning authority’s initiative with the communes, it involves no public inquiry, being a holding measure meant to prepare the plan d’aménagement and preserve the SDAU’s orientations. Approved by order published in the Official Bulletin, it “produces effects towards the administration and third parties for a maximum of two years”. The official planning information note template expressly provides for land governed by a zoning plan rather than a plan d’aménagement.

And outside the towns?

The dahir of 25 June 1960 on the development of rural settlements applies to settlements outside the perimeters defined in article 18 of Law 12-90, that is outside urban communes and their peripheral zones, delimited centres, planning groupings and special-purpose zones. It creates the development plan, “at once a drawing and a legal document” made of a plan and a simplified regulation in table form, which takes effect for ten years, renewable once. As soon as a settlement has one, “obtaining prior authorisation is required for any construction”. The plan is approved by the governor’s order then by the Interior Minister’s order, both published in the Official Bulletin.

What does an alignment order change?

The alignment order is, according to Chtouki, “a particularly simple tool”: communal council presidents “may decide the creation of roads, squares and car parks, the change of their route or width or their total or partial removal” by an order accompanied by a plan showing the road’s boundary, on the basis of article 32 of Law 12-90. It is the only planning document initiated by local elected officials. The official planning note template carries a standard mention: “a new alignment is to be respected along development road no. … of … m width”. The strip struck by alignment is not buildable and setbacks are measured from the new line, not from the current fence.

What is a study order?

The legislator provided study orders “to fix the limits of the territory for which the study of the plan is envisaged so that development or building operations do not defeat its forecasts”. Their validity is limited to six months, renewable once for an equal period. Chtouki notes they are “rarely issued”, elected officials being unfavourable to a measure that prevents them from issuing permits. If your plot is in a perimeter under study, the planning note mentions it and review may be suspended.

How do you read these documents for your plot?

Article 8 of the general building regulation requires the planning note to state the nature of the planning document in force (zoning plan, plan d’aménagement or rural development plan), the zone’s designation, prohibited and conditional uses, the maximum site coverage and floor-area possibilities, implantation conditions relative to boundaries, maximum height and access conditions. The official template attaches “a copy of the planning regulation applicable to the zones concerned and an extract of the planning document”. Médias24 recommends checking that the note “is recent (less than six months) and reflects the plan d’aménagement in force”, plans being generally updated every ten years.

A word on language. The note is issued in French or Arabic; there is no English version, and the English names used here (master plan, development plan, zoning plan) are explanations, not official translations. When you discuss the note with an architect or a notary, use the French terms, which are the ones every Moroccan professional and administration uses.

Two additions. If the plot is a lot in an authorised subdivision, the subdivision’s specifications (cahier des charges) apply on top of the plan d’aménagement and may be stricter. And the plans themselves can be consulted at the commune and the urban agency, where they are displayed after approval. Reading the coefficients is the subject of the guide on COS and CUS; the full pre-purchase routine, of the guide on checking a plot.

Can you depart from the plan d’aménagement?

Law 12-90 lets the authors of planning documents specify the sectors that may be modified and the conditions to meet. Chtouki observes that this provision is little applied and that derogation has mostly been organised by ministerial circulars, with negative effects on urban coherence. For a private owner this means a project that does not comply with the plan must never be designed in reliance on a derogation: its grant depends on a committee, takes time and is never guaranteed. The general building regulation draws a procedural consequence: derogating projects leave the ordinary small-projects track.