As a major component of the urban landscape of Moroccan cities, the Urban Agencies have played a particularly important role in the management of the "rapid urbanization" of large urban centers. The different missions they perform require more and more skills, a good mastery of the "process" of manufacturing the city, in all its dimensions, at all scales and for all the components of the city, from the scale of housing, the construction of public facilities, to the development of public spaces that irrigate and structure the city.

Every regulation, planning scheme, public infrastructure project is part of the living environment of the inhabitants of the city or territory concerned, to their satisfaction to have places adapted to their destination, their vocation. Every layout, every choice, every option taken by the owners of works of any kind, by the developers, the promoters, ... become components of the urban landscape, for everyone, all generations combined, and for decades.

Faced with the difficulties encountered by the actors within the Urban Agencies, increasingly "confined" in the exercise of the regulatory verification of the projects submitted to them, given certain unsatisfactory returns of experience, on time Where the opportunity for land and the demand for an answer "in an immediacy" prevail too often on "a long-term vision", the Federation of Urban Agencies - MAJAL - wished to start a reflection on the method, on the " Process "of programming, and give the floor to the actors that are the professionals of the urban planning of the Agencies, to discuss the different questions they face daily and try to initiate new perspectives.

On 16 and 17 September last, the Federation invited the Directors, Managers, Technicians of the Urban Agencies and executives managers of the General Directorate of Urbanism, Architecture and Territory Planning to participate in A seminar organized around "Urban programming". Numerous questions were addressed by both speakers and participants during presentations, case studies developed in workshops and roundtable discussions. The debates developed on methodology and tools as well as on the method of construction and governance of projects, its actors, as well as on the question of setting up operations, not to mention the regulatory component, including the urban standards grid Constitutes the only normative tool in force, proposing a standard and now old calibration of public facilities, with regard to the importance of development projects.

2. Stakes of the seminar:

This session included:

First, to study, in the existing context, how to initiate a programming approach but also to invite the participants to various questions about the current practices and to provide some elements of response and method putting the use, City-dwellers of today, at the center of the reflection, but also to present another angle of view on the question of "how to apprehend the question of urban planning? ".

Secondly, to identify the issues and difficulties encountered by the participants in the field, in order to be able to engage in the debate on the setting up of training, assistance and various tools for Aiming for an improvement in quality in the manufacture of the city and its building.

They were also to :

• Sensitize participants to the strengths of engaging in an urban programming process and in a project management and support system,
• Identify the reasons for the "why" of certain urban productions, which are not very qualitative, and how the organization of management and the players involved in planning and construction explain it,
• Define the programming process and program assistance to the project owner, at each stage of the project process, at each component scale of the city,
• Create a forum for discussion and debate, in particular on the operational mode to be implemented in any project situation, whatever the context,
• Identify gaps in the organization of the urban planning process, the "construction" of the city, its spaces and the public facilities that give it meaning and life,
• Identify the recurring difficulties and constraints faced by the managers and technicians of the Urban Agencies in their territory, within the framework of the different types of studies carried out,
• Bring to light the institutional, legal and financial constraints that frame and hinder any programming approach and oppose the setting up of preliminary studies.

3. The main themes addressed during the seminar:

• The relationship between planning and programming:

Planning results from the choices of local decision-makers in terms of agglomeration development and land rights. The resultant development plan defines the rules for constructing the soil. The programming is part of an operational process that refers to operational planning. The programming of a construction or improvement operation is carried out whenever a contracting authority, developer or builder is approached to carry it out.

• The relationship between programming and costs and funding:

The scheduling of a transaction takes into account a set of parameters (context, market, land quality, environment, etc.), including costs. Programming an operation without knowing how much it will cost and how it will be financed does not make sense. If these questions are excluded from programming, this may lead to a "fine drawing"

• Programming can not be the simple and ideal result of needs, or wishes,

at the risk of "producing a dream". Programming is a process that builds on reality with its limitations. It is precisely within the limits that programming will be the most relevant. How, in fact, answer at best the question asked, according to the means available. The time of programming is also the prime moment of arbitration,

• Programming and project:

programming is the time that the client devotes to determining the stakes, the objectives of his operation, to arrive at a set of requirements and wishes, which he translates into his order (The program) to the prime contractor. It is then, secondly, the prime contractor to shape these requirements and expectations and to reveal, through his talent, the program through the architectural response,

• The question of land tenure

in development operations has been the subject of questions that need to be investigated further, as this is one of the key elements of the production process of a building or structure, infrastructure.

• Many other questions were raised during these two days:

In the present context, where the public land shortage is sorely felt and the operational situation is in the hands of planners and the private promoters, how can architectural and urban programming be given a real place?

How do we engage in a programming approach and how to get the message out of the importance of this process, which requires "taking time" upstream of the drawing?

How do we bring together all the "ingredients" required to implement a sound programming approach?

What tools could be developed, in support of the normative grid to accompany the professionals of the Urban Agencies in their mission?

4. Some lessons to be learned from interventions, workshops and debates:

The program complementary tool to the regulatory tools:

The regulatory tools resulting from urban planning are distinct from the program that will be developed during a particular development project. In addition to expressing what the client expects, the programming phase will make it possible to verify, beforehand, by an exhaustive contextual diagnosis, the relevance and feasibility of the operation both from a "technical" point of view and "financial". In this approach, urban planning regulations form the basis for this preliminary analysis. However, it is at this stage and in the light of a careful analysis of the particular context of the development project that planning by-laws can sometimes be re-examined in order to serve the project with a public interest objective and shared by the community. Governance of the project.

The impact of sustainable development in urban planning:

Beyond the need to take into account the environmental impact of urban development through the control of urban sprawl, increased protection of natural areas, a systematic practice of eco-construction, etc., the process Production of the urban is also modified, evolving on a participative management based on greater communication, strengthening the driving role that the project owner must manage to manage projects aimed at a high quality urban, social, Use, environmental and economic benefits. This process of operation management introduces the concept of regular monitoring of the quality of the operation with regard to the program which defined it through evaluation time.

From the need to integrate the question of displacement into reflection:

The question of transport, population patterns and ever-increasing logistical flows is currently being neglected, particularly for economic reasons and short-term reasoning, which leads to urban sprawl and thus to Time and the "transport budget" of families, when it does not lead to a form of isolation, for the inhabitants of the most remote areas and not served by public transport.

5. Conclusions and perspectives:

Many questions remain, inviting to continue these exchanges and to put in place concrete actions, to engage in the development of new tools:

• How to evolve the processes of development of planning documents so that they become tools supporting urban development offering reliability, feasibility and scalability.
• How can urban agencies be "driving", being the "managers" in the setting up of new sets of actors, bringing together elected representatives, technicians from local authorities, developers, urban planners, project managers, users ...
• How to "counterbalance" and position ourselves in front of the lobby of private promoters who "govern" urban development?
• How can we approach a new turning point for Urban Agencies, bringing together real urban planning professionals, broadening their field of expertise and redefining their missions and resources, combining regulatory planning and operational planning?

One or more workshops "in full size », on the basis of concrete projects, could constitute a first experiment of consultation in order to ask all the questions and try to initiate change in the manufacturing practices of the city.

The development of programmatic tools that would focus on the methodological aspect, on the qualitative aspect, ... beyond the normative component (with its limitations) could also be a path to be developed. It would not only be a question of quantifying, but of qualifying.