Credit: MEA, DATer
On Thursday 29 September 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Spatial Planning, Claude Turmes, and the representatives of eleven municipatilites signed a letter of intent to continue the Regional Forum (Regionalforum Zentrum - RFZ) as a platform for inter-municipal, multi-level and multi-sectoral exchanges.
The eleven participating municipalites are the municipalites of Bertrange, City of Luxembourg, Hesperange, Leudelange, Mamer, Niederanven, Sandweiler, Schuttrange, Steinsel, Strassen and Walferdange.
Until 2026, the municipalities and the state will provide a budget of €1.725 million, with each municipality contributing €125,000 (€25,000 annually from 2022 to 2026) and €350,000 contributed by the Department of Spatial Planning (Département de l'aménagement du territoire - DATer) to promote territorial cooperation via the RFZ.
Thus, with the ceremonial signature of the letter of intent, the work of the Regional Forum was officially launched.
Minister Turmes said: "the strengthening of collaboration within the Forum is essential, because it implements the objectives of a sustainable territorial development policy and promotes territorial governance through an exchange of experiences and the intercommunal, interministerial and multidisciplinary know-how and encourages the development of common concrete strategies and projects. The cooperation between the State and the municipalities constitutes one of the pillars of our approach in order to maintain and improve the quality of life of the citizens in a concerted manner and valuing the sustainable development potential of the territory of the Agglo Centre".
Where does the Regional Forum come from?
The cooperation and consultation format between the municipalities was developed in the framework of different workshops conducted in 2018 with the actors concerned. The "action plan for territorial cooperation" is the result of these workshops and the conceptual basis of the regional forum. During the period from 2020 to 2022, the actors worked together on the themes of waste management and active mobility. Following the thematic days and the dedicated visits, the working groups composed of the municipal representatives have drawn up articles-type for the regulations on the buildings, the roads and the sites of their municipalities in order to exchange on the good practices and elaborate a set of high standards concerning, for example, bicycle spaces in residences.
RFZ: challenges and objectives
With a view to contributing to the reform work of the Territorial Development Master Programme (Programme Directeur d’Aménagement du Territoire - PDAT), the DATer initiated the elaboration of territorial visions for the three urban agglomerations including the one for the RFZ.
The territorial vision Agglo Centre identifies the challenges, the stakes, the potentials and the specificities of the territory in the national context and considering the existing analysis and studies and more specifically the general development plans of the municipalities concerned. It proposes a prospective territorial vision taking into account the existing and currently developing strategies.
Details of the Regional Forum is available online via: https://rfz.lu/mission/vision-territoriale/.
