Determine the planning framework

Step 2 of 12 Preparation & Analysis

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With the working structures from Step 1 in place, Step 2 draws the boundary around the plan itself. Before any data is gathered it answers four practical questions. Which area does the plan cover? How does it connect to the strategies and legal duties already in force? What timeline and work plan will carry it? And what capacity does the team realistically have? In the urban outskirts the first of these is the hardest, because the periphery rarely comes with tidy edges.

Define the area you are planning for

SUMP asks planners to work with a functional area, the real travel-to-work and travel-to-service area, rather than a purely administrative boundary. DREAMS narrows the unit of analysis further. Following Deliverable 2.1, the right scale for a 15-minute-neighbourhood plan is the neighbourhood, and the fair way to compare very different settlements is residential density, measured as residents per square kilometre of urbanised land. Choosing the neighbourhood and a clear density measure lets you place your area on a typology and adapt the 15-minute principles to it, rather than importing a city-centre template.

In the DREAMS project urban outskirts are defined as the medium-density areas in the near context of a city, where car dependency is high and the functional link to the city, above all the daily commute, is strong. It reads a periphery along six dimensions: density, diversity, design, governance, business models and the human perspective. Running your area through them turns a vague label, whether a post-war estate, a low-density suburb or a former village absorbed by a growing city, into a description you can plan against.

DREAMS also shows that residents are not interchangeable. Across the six living labs the project planned around distinct focus groups whose needs frame the question differently: older adults and residents with a migration background in Geretsried near Munich, young adults along the T12 corridor in Évry-Courcouronnes near Paris, migrants and low-income households in Overvecht in Utrecht, parents in Neder-Over-Heembeek in Brussels, and adults in Rákosmente in Budapest. Deciding early whose proximity you are planning for is part of setting the framework.

The living labs also show what bounding an outskirt looks like in practice. When the project surveyed residents, several teams used postcode filters to hold the focus on the periphery and exclude the central districts, widening the recruitment area only where low response rates forced it. The lesson for Step 2 is the same. A functional outskirt boundary is a deliberate choice, and it belongs in writing.

Connect to existing plans and duties

A SUMP is never written on a blank page. SUMP calls for linking the plan to other planning processes, so that mobility, land use, housing, environment and economic development pull in one direction. In the outskirts this matters even more, because the levers are shared. Responsibility for land use, roads, public transport and social services is usually split between a core city, one or more suburban municipalities and a regional or transport tier, and none of them can deliver a 15-minute neighbourhood alone. The practical starting point is to list the plans and duties yours must sit alongside.

Land use and zoning

Where homes, shops, schools and jobs are allowed to go, and at what density.

Regional strategy

The transport and growth plans of the wider metropolitan area.

Public transport plans

Service levels and contracts, and the operators and authorities who set them.

Legal duties

Under the revised TEN-T Regulation, urban nodes must adopt a SUMP by 2027.

DREAMS mapped this terrain directly. Deliverable 2.2 reviews the existing planning, governance and business-model frameworks across the study regions, showing how different cities embed 15-minute goals in their own planning hierarchies and where the gaps sit. Starting from that map of who holds which lever is the practical way to align your plan with what already exists.

Agree on a timeline and work plan

With the area and the connections clear, the plan needs a shape in time. It is recommended to agree on a realistic timeline and work plan before the analysis begins, so that ambition is matched to the capacity, staff and budget actually available. Most plans move through three arcs.

Preparation

Confirm the scope, map stakeholders and settle the framework conditions of who, where and what.

Realisation

Run the analysis, co-create measures and put the first interventions on the ground.

Evaluation

Track results, reflect on feasibility and feed the lessons into the next round.

The DREAMS living lab in Vienna, in the outer district of Liesing, followed exactly this rhythm. A set-up phase ran through spring 2025, a realisation phase built a flexible mobility hub from mid-2025, and an evaluation phase runs to the end of 2026. A first workshop settled the framework conditions before the hands-on work began. Deliverable 5.1 documents the timetable and the local partnership behind it.

Find your starting point

To locate your own area, compare it with the six DREAMS living labs. Each is a different kind of European outskirt, from a low-density fringe in Vienna to a post-war estate in Utrecht and a suburban district in Budapest. Reading the lab closest to your context is a fast way to see which challenges and interventions are likely to matter for your plan. Start at the living labs overview.

Go deeper

Before you fix the framework, it helps to see how your current planning measures up. The free SUMP self-assessment tool scores your planning against the principles of a good SUMP and returns tailored advice. A fuller list of guidance, tools and related projects is on the related initiatives and resources page.

Sources and further information: EU SUMP Guidelines, Second Edition (Rupprecht Consult, 2019), Step 2 "Determine the planning framework"; DREAMS Deliverable 2.1 (concepts and definition of the 15-minute city for urban outskirts); Deliverable 2.2 (review of existing planning, governance and business frameworks); Deliverable 4.2 (resident survey scoping); Deliverable 5.1 (set-up of the living labs).

← Set up working structures

SUMP overview

Analyse the mobility situation →