Toolbox

Phase 1: AssessmentPhase 1. Assess the context of the urban planning process (political, social, economic, legal, etc.) and of the territory in which the plan will be developed.
Phase 2: PlanPhase 2. Develop the technical document for different types of plans: Strategic Development Plan, Land Management Plan, Neighbourhood Plan.
Phase 3: OperationalisationPhase 3. Operationalise the plan and projects: programming, enabling mechanisms and action plan.
Phase 4: ImplementationPhase 4. Establish the mechanisms and processes for the implementation and monitoring of the plan and projects.

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Legal Framework Review

1 week

Toolbox Themes

Climate actionIncorporate an approach to efficiently streamline the city's disaster risk preparedness, combat climate change and its impacts and integrate disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation measures into urban planning processes, strengthening the city's overall resilience to natural hazards.
Sustainable Urban MobilityCreate a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan that builds efficient and accessible transport systems to meet people’s mobility needs and support a more connected city.

Objectives

Understand the legal planning framework at the national, sub-national and local level, the legal requirements for the plan approval, and review existing planning documents.

Results

Legal planning framework, institutional structure and decision-makers representatives of the urban planning system

Tools

Description

The technical team will examine the current urban legal framework and the institutional structure and the political champions and decision-makers representatives of the urban planning system. After that, they will review the existing planning documents, key actors and institutions to be involved and the minimum requirements to develop a plan to ensure alignment between the international, national, regional and local agenda. This step is crucial, as Our City Plans approach does not substitute any local planning system. Instead, it supports and integrates UN-Habitat's recommendations into the existing local framework, ensuring inclusive, strategic, and cost-effective processes.

Steps

Make a scheme of the institutional and government structure of the national, regional, and local planning system (T2 Urban Legislation Assessment).
Review all the existing planning instruments and documents at national, regional and local scales.
Analyse the cataster or any existing documents related to land ownership and management.
Review some of the international urban planning frameworks and compile T3 Matrix of References.
If possible, complete the Planning Law Assessment Framework.
If possible, assess the current city Plan with the City-scale Plan Assessment Tool.

Resources

Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Action

The legal framework is an important element to consider when seeking to advance efficient disaster risk reduction and climate action, specially to align national disaster risk management and climate policy and regulatory frameworks with strategical plans and agreements such as the Nationally Determined Contributions, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Paris Agreement. For this, existing regional, national and local legal resources should be identified. Some may focus specifically on climate change (eg. climate change acts), and disaster risk reduction (eg. National Risk Strategy) while others may have a broader scope but include disaster risk reduction and/or climate elements (eg. policies related to energy and water). This step will furtherly help to determine which actions at local level might best contribute to local and national resilience goals, particularly those that are incorporated into legal documents related to disaster risk response, climate mitigation and adaptation.

Additional resources:
Law and Climate Change Toolkit