Lucerne establishes new "Urban Development" department

The city of Lucerne is separating the area of "building permits" from urban planning. Almost four full-time positions will be created for the new urban planning department, which will deal with issues such as the preservation of garden monuments and the protection of cultural assets.

"After deliberately focusing on the building permit procedure in recent years and in order to avoid conflicts of interest between the tasks of urban planning and the building permit procedure, the city council has decided to unbundle these areas of responsibility," the city writes in justification. Planning processes are to become "more service-oriented and efficient", and the city also wants to speed up private design plan procedures and give more weight to monument preservation.

The urban planning department is often the first point of contact for large construction projects. According to the press release, it deals with urban interests such as "school space planning, urban climate, gray energy, urban greenery, tree protection, etc.". The department also supports the design plan process. (aw)