Federal Act
on Spatial Planning
(Spatial Planning Act, SPA)¹

¹ Au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for plan­ning shall take ac­count of the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

² The coun­tryside must be pre­served. In par­tic­u­lar:

a.¹⁰

suf­fi­cient areas of suit­able ar­able land, in par­tic­u­lar crop ro­ta­tion areas, should be re­served for ag­ri­cul­ture;

b.

set­tle­ments, build­ings and in­stall­a­tions should in­teg­rate well in­to the land­scape;

c.

lakesides and ri­verb­anks should be kept free and ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic;

d.

nat­ur­al land­scapes and re­cre­ation­al areas should be con­served;

e.

forests should be able to ful­fil their func­tions.

³ Set­tle­ments must be ar­ranged ac­cord­ing to the needs of their in­hab­it­ants and their ex­pan­sion must be lim­ited. In par­tic­u­lar:

a.¹¹

res­id­en­tial and work­ing areas should be suit­ably loc­ated ad­ja­cent to each oth­er and mainly planned in loc­a­tions that are ad­equately served by pub­lic trans­port;

a^bis.¹²

meas­ures should be taken to make bet­ter use of un­used or in­suf­fi­ciently used areas in build­ing zones and of op­por­tun­it­ies to con­sol­id­ate the set­tle­ment area;

b.

res­id­en­tial areas should as far as pos­sible be pro­tec­ted from harm­ful emis­sions or nuis­ances such as air pol­lu­tion, noise or vi­bra­tion;

c.

cycle-paths and foot­paths should be cre­ated and main­tained;

d.

fa­vour­able con­di­tions for the sup­ply of goods and ser­vices should be en­sured;

e.

set­tle­ments should con­tain nu­mer­ous open spaces and trees.

⁴ Ap­pro­pri­ate loc­a­tions must be chosen for build­ings and in­stall­a­tions which are pub­lic, or in the pub­lic in­terest. In par­tic­u­lar:

a.

re­gion­al needs should be con­sidered and un­desir­able dis­par­it­ies re­duced;

b.

fa­cil­it­ies such as schools, re­cre­ation­al centres and pub­lic ser­vices should be eas­ily ac­cess­ible to in­hab­it­ants;

c.

ad­verse im­pacts on the nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment, the pop­u­la­tion and the eco­nomy should be avoided or min­im­ised.