Regional Legislative Decree No. 35/2012/A on the Legal regime of territorial management instruments.

This Regional Legislative Decree establishes the Legal regime of territorial management instruments. It develops the bases of the policy of land use planning and urbanism contained in Law No. 48/98 of 11 August, as amended, defining the regime of the territorial management system, the general regime of land use and the regime of elaboration, follow-up, approval, execution and evaluation of the instruments of territorial management. The regional policy for land-use planning and urbanism is based on a territorial management system, which is organized, within a framework of coordinated interaction, in two areas: Regional; and Municipal. The Regional scope is achieved through the following instruments: a) PROTA — Regional Planning Plan for the Territory of the Azores; b) Sectoral plans with territorial impact; c) Special land use plans, in the form of island land use plans. The Municipal scope is achieved through the following instruments: a) The inter-municipal land use plans; b) Municipal land use plans. The Regional Government, through the department of the autonomous regional administration competent in terms of land use planning, is responsible to implement the regional policy for land use planning and urban planning, considering the municipal strategies of local development established in the intermunicipal and municipal instruments.
The Azores Regional Land Use Plan (PROTA) ensures the safeguarding and enhancement of areas of national and regional interest in economic, agricultural, forestry, environmental and heritage terms. PROTA aims to: a) Develop, at the regional level, the options set out in the National Program for Territorial Planning Policy and the sectoral plans; b) Translate, in spatial terms, the main objectives of sustainable economic and social development formulated in the regional development plan; c) Equating the measures tending to the attenuation of intra-regional development asymmetries; d) Serve as a basis for the formulation of the regional strategy for territorial planning and as a reference framework for the preparation of special, intermunicipal and municipal plans for territorial planning.