Monaco’s Master Plan: What Bill No. 1.126 Means for Property Owners

A twenty-year planning horizon, frozen sites and stronger pre-emption rights: the proposed Development and Planning Master Plan would shift Monaco’s urban planning from a permit-based system to a territorial strategy. For property owners, the consequences for value and liquidity are direct.


A bill with its roots in the Conseil National

Bill No. 1.126, which would establish a Development and Planning Master Plan (Schéma Directeur de Développement et d’Aménagement, or SDDA), was tabled by the Government on 1 June 2026. It stems from private member’s bill No. 265, passed by the Conseil National on 28 November 2024, which the Government chose to take over as its own bill. The 37-article text is now before the Environment and Quality of Life Committee.

The starting point is not in dispute: land still available for development has all but run out, and the Principality’s growth now depends on what the bill calls “rebuilding the city on the city”. Until now, planning in Monaco has rested on Ordinance-Law No. 674 of 3 November 1959 and on district-by-district planning regulations, the essential question being whether a scheme complied with the rules applying to its plot. The SDDA is designed to establish in advance what the State intends to build, transform or protect.


Three documents, a twenty-year horizon

The plan would comprise a forward-looking report, setting out a diagnosis of the territory and a twenty-year projection; a strategic planning document, which sets and ranks objectives policy by policy, from housing and mobility to public facilities and the energy transition; and an action programme, which quantifies and schedules the operations to be carried out. The approach is reminiscent of French planning instruments, applied here to an entire State.

Drawn up by the Minister of State after consulting bodies including the Conseil National, the Commune and the Heritage Council, the SDDA would be adopted by Sovereign Ordinance, published in the Journal de Monaco and made available to the public. It would have to be adopted within four years of the law coming into force and reviewed at least every six years. Planning regulations would then have two years to be brought into line, during which permit applications inconsistent with the action programme would be put on hold.


Land tools at the heart of the scheme

For owners and investors, the substance lies in the land powers the bill gives the State. First, the action programme could designate reserved sites for public facilities, green spaces or housing schemes. Any application to build or demolish that did not match the designated use would have to be refused, save for categories of works set by Sovereign Ordinance. Second, it could define enhanced study zones, in which all new construction and all works on existing buildings would be prohibited for up to six years pending an overall development project. In both cases, works authorised after designation would be disregarded when valuing the property.

These areas would automatically give the State a right of pre-emption, taking precedence over existing pre-emption rights relating to residential premises built before 1947 and to commercial leases. It would apply not only to property sales but also to transfers of a majority stake in a société civile holding an affected property. Buildings whose completion inspection took place less than four years earlier would be exempt.

Pricing is the most contentious point. The State could pre-empt on the terms declared by the seller or on different terms, with an offer based in particular on the latest IMSEE data. The owner would have one month to respond; failing agreement, the price would be set by the Court of First Instance under the procedure of Law No. 502 of 6 April 1949 on compulsory purchase. Improvements made after the draft plan was finalised would be presumed to have been carried out to obtain a higher price.

In return, the bill creates a right to require purchase (droit de délaissement), allowing the owner of an affected property to require the State to buy it. If the State declines to acquire a property on a reserved site, the reservation can no longer be enforced and the previous planning rules apply again. Finally, the bill makes it compulsory for buildings to connect to public water, energy, sewerage and electronic communications networks.


A balance still to be struck

The Conseil National welcomed a text that reflects the spirit of its original proposal, while noting that the pre-emption right, the right to require purchase and the compulsory purchase provisions were not part of it. These measures “raise legitimate questions among the professionals concerned and property owners”, it said in July 2026, and the chair of the committee added that, if retained, they would need to be properly framed. Asked for its view by the Assembly, the High Commission for the Protection of Rights, Freedoms and Mediation backed the planning objective in an opinion issued in August 2026, while recommending closer public involvement, a clearer valuation method in pre-emption cases and stronger protection for owners.


Densifying without degrading

The bill treats rebuilding the city on the city as an objective to be balanced against urban quality, the protection of natural areas and the safeguarding of heritage. The issue is a practical one. An older building is not necessarily a land reserve waiting to be exploited, and a new one is not automatically an improvement. Additional building volume affects sunlight, views, the privacy of neighbouring homes and the load on networks. A scheme can comply with every building rule and still weigh on the value of the properties around it. Identifying in advance which areas should be densified, restructured or preserved is precisely what the master plan is for.


What changes for property values

Over time, two physically comparable properties could follow different value trajectories depending on where they stand under the plan. A site within a regeneration area would gain in prospects; a property burdened by a reserved site or located in a frozen zone would see its scope for change, and its liquidity, diminish. The master plan would thus become a reference document for property valuation, alongside planning regulations, provided a clear distinction is drawn between theoretical potential and actual development rights.

Timing will soften these effects. Until the plan is adopted, permit applications will continue to be assessed under the current regulations, and the State would have four years to adopt it from the entry into force of a law that has yet to be passed. The impact on values will therefore play out over the long term, and will depend largely on the text that emerges from parliamentary scrutiny.