Legal Zoning Plans
Components of Legal Zoning Plans
Legal zoning plans should be compiled whenever necessary for urban development and good order’s sake. This is left to the discretion of the municipality, which is therefore under no obligation to compile legal zoning plans for the entire city; as a rule legal zoning plans are compiled for certain areas of the municipality only.
As a rule a legal zoning plan comprises:
- stipulations in written and diagram form,
- the grounds, in which the objectives and major impacts of the plan are explained,
- an environmental report, as a separate part of the grounds,
- and a summary explanation outlining how environmental issues and the results of public and official involvement were taken into consideration in the planning.
The stipulations in the legal zoning plan determine in a positive way which built and other facilities are permissible. There is no basic compulsion to use the plots of land in the manner envisaged (supply planning).
Legal zoning plans include an environmental report in certain cases only, and if they came into force before July 20, 2006 do not contain a summary explanation.
All the legally binding legal zoning plans of the City of Frankfurt/Main can be viewed in the planning information section of the planning department of the municipal planning authority.
Furthermore, you can download and print out all legally binding legal zoning plans and the attendant documents, as well as all areas of validity and procedural data compiled by clicking the planning law digital information system planAS. In planAS the areas of validity of the legally binding legal zoning plans appear as blue, and those in the compilation procedure as red spaces.
Eco-audit and environmental report
With regard to environmental protection issues in accordance with section 1 (6) no. 7 BauGB and section 1a BauGB, the eco-audit prescribed by law is conducted when a legal zoning plan is being compiled. The eco-audit serves to identify and investigate the probable considerable environmental impact that development of an area would cause. The results are published and evaluated in the environmental report, which forms part of the rationale. The impact of the plan on things worthy of protection (people and health, animals and plants, land, soil, water, the countryside and recreation, the climate and climate change, cultural and material assets) is presented and measures aimed at avoiding, reducing, and balancing out the detrimental effects listed.
The result of the eco-audit and the evaluation of the various issues must be considered in the overall assessment. Depending on the spatial circumstances the municipality determines the extent to which and in what degree of detail the issues are investigated.
One of the main issues is the protection and preservation of healthy living and working conditions, which among other things are evaluated on the basis of an appraisal of the expected noise pollution (for example through road and rail traffic) that will affect people. The evaluation of noise levels and the stipulation of protective measures are based on the principles and objects worthy of protection in the Noise Emissions Work Aid. This latter is currently being revised and will soon be published in the new, updated version.