The end of “Urban Agencies”, time for regional agencies

Adopted by the House of Representatives, Bill No. 64.23 initiates a structural reform of territorial governance. The piece of legislation replaces the urban agencies model with a unified regional system, in line with the principles of advanced regionalization and territorial administration reform.
The law establishes the creation of twelve regional urban planning and housing agencies, one per region. Established as public institutions with legal personality and financial autonomy, these entities will operate within a geographical scope strictly aligned with regional boundaries. The bill provides for these Regional Agencies to replace the existing urban agencies by taking over their rights and obligations in order to ensure legal and administrative continuity.
The primary goal is to unify territorial planning at the regional level. However, the ambition does not stop there. The new system also aims to strengthen the Government’s capacity to support investment, urban development, and housing dynamics in both urban and rural areas. In this plan, Article 23 of the bill provides for a special provision for the Casablanca-Settat region: a regional agency and the maintenance of the Casablanca Urban Agency.
Presenting the bill to the House of Representatives, Adib Benbrahim, Secretary of State for Housing, described the reform as a continuation of the assessment of the urban planning and housing system. This assessment highlighted a profusion of stakeholders, a lack of regional consistency, performance gaps between territories, and persistent procedural burdens.
Law 64.23 thus aims to provide an institutional response to these dysfunctions by establishing a new regional model designed to harmonize public action while integrating territorial specificities. The text also enshrines the strengthening of the prerogatives of the director general: the executive sees this as a lever to shorten processing times and limit the blockages observed in the old system.
One of the major contributions of the reform is the search for a better balance between urban and rural areas. Regional agencies retain their planning responsibilities (master plans, development plans) and monitor rural dynamics, including rural agglomeration development plans. Their scope of action has been broadened. It now includes investment support, support for territorial supply and regional development, contribution to national housing policy, the fight against substandard housing, as well as territorial engineering, expertise, monitoring, and evaluation tasks. The idea is to also make these regional agencies operational tools for supporting public policies.
Khadija MASMOUDI