We receive and publish this contribution from Jean-Christophe Picard, president of the Left Radical Party of the Alpes-Maritimes.
The charter of the brand new Côte d’Azur metropolis bluntly proclaims: “mayors alone retain the authority to grant building permits.” This argument is also regularly used by Christian Estrosi to reassure mayors and the public…
It is clearly necessary to recall that the Local Urban Plan (PLU) – the document that sets the general rules for land use – is now intercommunal! However, a mayor can, in principle, only refuse a building permit if, and only if, it does not comply with the regulations, especially the PLU. His room for maneuver is therefore, in reality, very limited.
Certainly, the mayor sometimes retains real discretionary power, but it is expressly limited to very specific cases: a project that harms “public health or safety” [1], a project that is likely to “be exposed to severe nuisances” [2], a project that jeopardizes the “conservation […] of archaeological remains” [3], or a project that is not adequately “served by public or private roads” [4].
Ultimately, any refusal to issue a building permit must be justified [5]. In case of abuse of power, the judge will annul the mayor’s decision and the municipality will be required to compensate the aggrieved person.
As we can see, the so-called “exclusive competence” of the mayor, promised in the metropolis charter, deserves to be significantly downplayed!
It should be noted that even Christian Estrosi seems to be fully aware of the limited role of the mayor in this matter since he recently declared (regarding the Costanzo Center): “There are laws and rules that apply. I issued a building permit to someone who had the right to obtain it. If I hadn’t, I could have been sued by the courts.” [6]
So, were we lied to?
