The ability to consult the urban planning documents that are legally binding is recognized as a citizen’s right by most national laws, but up to the advent of the internet the real application of that rule was tricky. Even today, standards are still not clear. In the Madrid Region the Regional and Urban Planning portal lets you see maps, and, through the “planeamiento” link, the current planning documents for each municipality. Even if some layers are already a bit ancient seem at first sight quite old (the maps on the non-developed land and the built-up areas is from 2005-2006), in fact the real estate crisis has made these plans overall still correct in the broad lines, at least when it comes to urban growth. The time sequence of land occupation maps is specially interesting.
