Urban development
Frankfurt/Main with around 770,000 inhabitants and just short of 734,000 people working in the city forms the heart of the area that comes under the ambit of the Frankfurt/RhineMain Regional Association. Within the conurbation as a whole, there are some 2.5 million residents and about 1.3 million people in jobs.
In its role as the driver of social, economic, climate-adapted, resource-sparing, sustainable, and cultural development, the Frankfurt/RhineMain metropolitan region is destined to strengthen the performance and future prospects of the State of Hessen in the national and international context. To support the region’s prosperity, local authorities need to interact in modern ways as regards basic public services and spatial planning, without this undermining the guaranteed autonomy of said authorities. The idea is for new forms of regional cooperation and new networks to be bundled and support the local authorities’ powers.
To achieve these development goals, the State of Hessen has with its Metropolitan Act created the Regionalverband FrankfurtRheinMain (Frankfurt/RhineMain Regional Association) to manage and coordinate how shared duties are discharged in the Frankfurt/RhineMain conurbation. Regionalverband FrankfurtRheinMain is the agency in charge of the preparatory Urban Land-Use Plan and thus responsible for compiling, amending, and annulling the Regional Zoning Plan as well as the Town and Country Plan. In those cases where items in the preparatory Urban Land-Use Plan entail specifications for the regional planning, such items are elaborated in consultation with the South Hessen Regional Assembly. The delegates of the Frankfurt City Council active in the Chamber of the Regional Association as well as in the South Hessen Regional Assembly participate in the planning.
The Regional Zoning Plan and the Town and Country Plan create key strategic foundations for the spatial urban planning of Frankfurt/Main going forward. The Frankfurt City Planning Dept. is tasked with participating in the further development of the Regional Zoning Plan and devising analyses and development concepts within the development framework set out in that plan for the city’s territory to the extent that these are necessitated on a case-by-case basis. To date, it has drawn up analyses and development concepts for developing sites for new housing, developing commercial spaces, developing office spaces, and retail and mall structures. These concepts have the status of recommendations for all the agencies involved in the planning and form the basis for the urban planning going forward.