Andorra Proposes Urban Reforms for Sustainable Concentric Growth

The Andorran government has proposed reforms to the General Law on Territorial Planning and Urbanism (LGOTU) that promote a concentric urban model, allowing taller and denser buildings in established village centres while imposing stricter limits on size, height, and minimum plot sizes further out, to ensure ordered, sustainable growth over 15-20 years.

Territory and Urbanism Minister Raül Ferré, alongside Environment, Agriculture and Livestock Minister Guillem Casal and Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Mònica Bonell, outlined the changes during their final appearance before the General Council's study commission on Monday. Ferré detailed five zoning categories—casc antic, zona urbana, eixample urbà, zona residencial, and zona suburbana i protegida—tailored to each parish's existing settlements and maximum carrying capacity studies, expected in early 2026. Building intensity would taper off with distance from serviced urban cores, protecting biodiversity, ecological corridors, and orography. Parishes could apply temporary building volume quotas, similar to La Massana's system, during periods of high land pressure.

The ministers backed a joint National Strategic Plan for Territorial Planning and Urban Growth with parishes, to establish shared goals for infrastructure, housing, services, and natural spaces. Informed by capacity assessments, it would feature intermediate reviews every three to five years and full updates every eight to ten, adapting to demographic, economic, and climate shifts.

Key changes include scrapping "unconsolidated urban land" in favour of "urban land of maximum protection," barring most construction except limited cases like mountain refuges. Other proposals cover reserving land for public and parish facilities, easing urban land contributions, adding affordable rentals to national-interest projects, and regulating remote developments with low density and basic services to curb environmental damage.

Casal highlighted risks to agriculture from shrinking tobacco fields, declining hay meadows, and expanding steeper peixeders, which limit mechanisation and threaten local meat production amid falling livestock numbers. He called for classifying farmland as developable but protected to preserve it as viable assets for farmers, alongside a forthcoming water law in the first half of 2026—aligned with EU standards and focused on water resources—and a national natural park with Ordino and Canillo parishes next year.

Bonell stressed heritage protections, noting only 19 of 71 required monuments have approved plans. She advocated new tools like special protection plans, historic ensembles, ethnological zones, cultural routes, and landscape integration studies for projects near safeguarded sites, drawing from a patrimony law entering parliamentary process in the first half of 2026 to boost collaboration, accessibility, participatory management, and fiscal incentives for maintenance.

Ferré underscored maintaining private land values while balancing growth across parishes to meet social, economic, and environmental needs. The commission must now issue its findings by late January, potentially leading to a drafting group.