Advice work on the commercial planning in Catalonia

After the endorsement of the European Bolkestein Directive it was necessary to update regional legislation in the management of commercial premises field

Location: Catalonia
Developer: Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia)
Development: 2008

This work consisted in doing a piece of study and advising on how to program commercial uses in the territory from an urban and regional planning perspective. It was our aim to analyze new parameters of regulation to be able to allow new commercial establishments in Catalonia.

Our guidance was based on analyzing what urban planning parameters could be useful to the regulation of the commercial establishment along the territory, taking into account both the existing regulations on commercial equipment and the European Directive 123/2006/EC (‘Bolkestein Directive’) guidelines.  All this work was done as to set which ones were suitable to guide the new organization of commercial through urban legislation.

Throughout the process, it was necessary to consider the importance of consolidated urban scene (Trama Urbana Consolidada – TUC) as to determine the key elements for the location of certain commercial implementations. At the same time, it was important to regulate the enlargement of the existing frames already with the population density criteria.