Our legal structure

The Etablissement Public Foncier is an industrial and commercial public agency.

The Etablissement Public Foncier is an industrial and commercial public agency. Its object and structure are in line with article L 321-1 of the town planning code. The code provides for two different kinds of agencies: Public development agencies (établissements publics d'aménagement / EPA – art. L 321-1-a) and public land agencies (établissements publics fonciers / EPF – art. L 321-1-b). The EPFs' action is mainly focused on land intervention.

The EPF Nord-Pas de Calais was created by Decree nr 90-1154 of 19 December 1990, modified by Decree nr 2006-1131 of 8 September 2006.

The EPF has legal personality and financial autonomy.

The Etablissement's director, assisted by the team, prepares and executes the Board of Governors' decisions and manages the agency.

The EPF's decisions are subject to a double control:

• The préfet de région exerts the state's ward on the regional level and approves the Board of Governors' and the Executive Committee's acts. These are enforceable after the préfet's explicit approval or after 40 days if no approval has been issued. The préfet de région has a right to attend the meetings of the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee.
• The contrôleur général issues advisory statements on the director's decisions. Like the préfet, he has a right to attend the meetings of the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee.

This ensures the state's monitoring of the EPF's activity and allows it to express its position on the EPF's intervention regularly and constantly.

The control of the Cour des comptes, exerted on the local level by the Chambre régionale des comptes, is exerted periodically, normally every 5 years. It applies more specifically to the Etablissement's management, which is examined over 5 financial years, and results in an appraisal of the accounts kept by the accountant and a report on the certifying officer's management.

The statutory decree creating the EPF provides that "the Etablissement operates within the framework of a Pluriannual Intervention Programme (PPI) which is implemented in yearly periods. The Pluriannual Intervention Programme is its strategic plan. The EPF's current PPI covers the 2007-2013 period. It was preceded by two pluriannual programmes: Pluriannual Land Intervention Programme 1996-2000 and Pluriannual Land Intervention Programme 2000-2006.

More on the topic : Town planning code (pdf - 57.30 ko)