URBANISM AND SUSTAINABLE HERITAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Medina Charter adopted in 2008 established a typology of the architectural and urban characteristics helping to improve the relationships of public authorities and private individuals. Here, patio of the Ben Youssef madrasa.
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This document established a typology of the architectural and urban characteristics of the historic city by recognizing a hierarchy of spaces, neighbourhoods and architectural elements. The Charter was followed up with a set of regulations that made it possible to improve the relationships of public authorities and private individuals within the traditional urban fabric and its conservation. The Charter dealt with private properties, public buildings, commercial and service spaces (including guest houses), façades, infrastructure for drinking water, the street signage and urban planning. Exceptional cases which require in-depth impact studies concern certain types of facilities such as swimming pools, elevators and basements of houses. Building construction and modifications exceeding 8.5 m in the Medina and change of purpose of buildings from their original use or adaptive re-use had to be approved. The Charter is used by the administration in charge of heritage and town planning to control building and construction work within the World Heritage site. The conservation efforts are coupled with the gradual decrease in the local population of the Medina and this appears to have contributed to improving the living conditions inside the World Heritage property. The effect can be measured in the coming years. Even if this depopulation is slow (about 7,000 inhabitants in less than a decade, 1994–2004), it seems to be irreversible. An index of this impact is the alarming practice of parcelling out of land because of distribution of the houses between heirs or the renting of rooms of the same residence to several different tenants. Lastly, major social changes in the Moroccan family, in particular the transition from an extended family to