Urban community - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The urban community is in France more the high degree of inter-commune Coopération, by which several common shares part of their operation. The law n° 99-586 of the July 12th 1999 defines an urban community as “a public corporation of inter-commune co-operation gathering several communes of only one holding and without enclave which form, with the date of its creation, a whole of more than 500.000 inhabitants and who join within a space of solidarity, to work out and lead together a joint project of urban development and installation of their territory”. The majority of the urban communities however were founded before the promulgation of this law, and their statute is often somewhat different; much for example counts less than 500.000 inhabitants. With the difference in the communities of agglomeration and communes, a commune cannot withdraw urban community freely.

History

Initially, the law of December 31st 1966 creates the urban communities for certain cities (Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg). At the time, the objective is to mitigate the shift between the existing administrative structures and the geographical reality of these agglomerations.

Law 99-586 of the July 12th 1999, known as “law Chevènement” , limit the creation of new urban communities to whole of at least 500 000 inhabitants comprising at least a city of more than 50 000 inhabitants, of only one holding and without enclave. These thresholds do not call into question the urban communities created before, which for the majority do not fill these criteria (and which should be constituted in Communauté of agglomeration if they were formed nowadays).

The association of the urban communities of France (Acuf) gathers the fourteen urban communities. Its president is, since October 19th, 2007, Robert Grossmann, president of the urban community of Strasbourg.

40 years an old serial

1966 : law 66-1069 creates the statute and the first four establishments in Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon and Strasbourg;
1968: the urban community of Dunkirk is the first urban community created of the initiative of the elected officials, on the model inhabitant of Lille but also to escape fusions from communes, jointly with the many urban districts appeared in the area (Arras, Boulogne, Calais, Lens, Béthune…) ;
1970: urban communities of the Creusot-Montceau-the-Mines and Cherbourg;
1971: urban community of Cherbourg;
1972: urban community of Mans
1973: urban community of Brest;
1995: creation of the urban community of Alençon per transformation of the urban district;
1996: creation also by transformation of the Urban community of Large Nancy;
1998: of the same creation of the urban community of Arras;
2001: with their transformation, the district of Nantes and the community of communes of Marseilles are the two last urban communities to be created to date.

Operation

The urban community is managed by a council of community composed members of the municipal councils of common the members.

At the time of the constitution of an urban community, common the members transfer obligatorily a certain number of competences in the following fields (complete listing with the L5215-20 article of the CGCT):

development and of economic, social and cultural installation: zones of activity, equipment various.
Community fitting-out: (Diagram of territorial coherence or Local plan of town planning), urban transport.
management of the social habitat.
political of the city.
services of collective interest: water, cleansing, cemeteries, slaughter-houses, markets of national interest.
environment and tallies of life: management of waste, fight against pollution of the air and noise pollutions.

The urban communities created before the law Chevènement remain subjected to the old mode, less wide.

The urban community can also receive other competences on behalf of the communes which compose it, if those wish it. It can finally manage whole or part of the social security in the event of agreement with the department.

Being given the importance of transferred competences, some require an election by the direct suffrage of this council of community in order to reinforce the legitimacy of the urban communities.

The financing of the urban communities rests on:

the product of the single Professional tax (TPU), that the communes transfer to the community.
of the additional fees, fixed by the community or transferred to compensate for new competences.
an equipment of the State within the framework of the total Equipment of operation (DGF).

14 urban communities of France

There are today 14 urban communities in France, which gather in all more than six million inhabitants. Only 5 of them exceed the threshold of 500.000 inhabitants necessary for the creation of a new urban community since 1999. But all have a statute more demanding than communautées of agglomeration which are of more recent creation: as illustration one can quote the fact that a greater number of competences are obligatorily exerted jointly by the gathered communes or that a commune cannot be withdrawn from an urban community.

Taking into account the thresholds of population, only some urban surfaces can claim to create new urban communities. If an urban community of large Paris is not currently envisaged, several metropolises of province can claim there like Toulouse as well as others, with the help of an extension of their current inter-commune perimeter: Le Havre and Montpellier already expressed of it the will, Rouen, Nice and current Association of the Territorial collectivities of the Parisian East (ACTEP) evoked the possibility of it.

Indeed, the census envisaged in 2004 should allow the Communauté agglomeration of Nice-Coast of Azure to officially pass the course of the 533.070 inhabitants, (500 000 hab, essential threshold for the creation of an urban community.)

the absence of urban community to Toulouse is explained by the absence of tradition of inter-commune co-operation in the agglomeration. Indeed, on the scale of the urban surface three communities of agglomeration coexist: the Large Toulouse, the Communauté of agglomeration of the SICOVAL Southern Toulouse Is and the Communauté of agglomeration of Muretain.

the absence of intercommunality between Paris and its suburbs is partly explained by the fear of the surrounding communes to be made absorb by Large Paris. If there exist intercommunalities, none contains consequently the city centers (Paris), and nothing is envisaged on this subject for the moment. A metropolitan conference is currently in development to coordinate the public action of the Town of Paris and the communities close to the small crown.

One can however add to this list the town of Montpellier that Georges Frêche, president of the community of agglomeration which counts 380.000 inhabitants, ambitionne to make pass to the row of urban community while amalgamating with another entity near geographically: that of Lunel in the east or those of the basin of Thau (Sète, Frontignan, Mèze) in the west. An alliance with Nimes is sometimes evoked in order to constitute a news large metropolis southernmost vis-a-vis Toulouse, Barcelona and Marseilles.

Urban communities apart from France

Even if it revêt of different institutional realities, name " community urbaine" have equivalents in Europe and in the world. The heading was borrowed most of the time from the French example to which the structures are posterior.

Older goes back to it, the Québécois urban communities also have since missing in the tread of fusions of communes in date of 2000. Following the example Urban community of Montreal (CUM) created in 1970 and which yielded the place to a " new Montréal" composed of old amalgamated municipalities from now on but also extended to a broader periphery.

The African continent has, by the colonial heritage, frequently followed French institutional reality. Very many metropolises are thus organized there in urban communities. The character with the head of Bamako is in fact only the " mayor central" capital Malian. Yaounde and Douala, two Cameronian metropolises are also organized in urban communities created by the law in 1987. It is the same for Niamey (Niger), Tananarive (Madagascar), Abidjan (Ivory Coast). As for the capital sénégalaise, previously, also, urban community, it comes to know institutional modifications which make of it, from now on… the Communauté of agglomeration of Dakar (CADAK). Fès, Casablanca, the principal metropolises Morocco groins are also organized in urban communities.

French-speaking Europe knows same institutional reality. Appeared during the years 1990, the urban communities are four in Walloon region: areas of Charleroi, Liege, the Center and Mons-Coal-mining. Of associative type, their missions remain specific.

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