A budget allocation to support local investment is instituted in favour of communes and public establishments for inter-communal cooperation with their own tax status in metropolitan France and in the local authorities governed by Article 73 of the Constitution.
A.-.The local investment support grant is intended to support projects in :
1° Thermal renovation, energy transition, development of renewable energies;
2° Bringing public facilities up to standard and making them safe;
3° Development of infrastructure for mobility or housing construction;
4° Development of digital technology and mobile telephony;
5° Creation, transformation and renovation of school buildings;
6° Construction of accommodation and public facilities made necessary by the increase in the number of inhabitants.
It is also intended to finance the completion of operations aimed at the development of rural areas included in a contract signed between, on the one hand, the representative of the State and, on the other hand, the public inter-communal cooperation establishment with its own tax status or the territorial and rural balance cluster mentioned in article L. 5741-1. These operations may concern actions designed to promote accessibility to services and healthcare, to develop attractiveness, to stimulate activity in town centres, to develop digital technology and mobile telephony and to strengthen mobility, the ecological transition and social cohesion.
B.-65% of the local investment support grant is allocated on the basis of the population of the regions and the Department of Mayotte, assessed at 1 January of the previous year and as defined in article L. 4332-4-1 for the regions and in article L. 3334-2 for the Department of Mayotte, and 35% based on the population of communes located in an urban unit of less than 50,000 inhabitants assessed at 1 January of the previous year. For communes, the population to be taken into account is that defined in article L. 2334-2 and the urban units are those on the list published by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques.
C.-.Communes, public establishments for inter-communal cooperation with their own tax status and territorial and rural balance clusters are eligible for this grant. By way of derogation, when the grant is part of a contract signed with the State representative, the project owners designated by the contract may be beneficiaries of the grant.
These grants are awarded by the State representative in the region or in the collectivity governed by Article 73 of the Constitution. Each year, the representative of the State in the département presents to the committee provided for in Article L. 2334-37 the guidelines that the representative of the State in the region plans to implement with regard to the grant for the current financial year.
Without prejudice to other delegations of signature that he may grant, the representative of the State in the region may delegate to the representative of the State in the department to sign decisions to award grants.
The representative of the State in the region takes into account the ecological nature of projects when setting grant rates.
These grants must be notified, for at least 80% of the amount of appropriations allocated to the region or collectivity governed by Article 73 of the Constitution for the current financial year, during the first half of the calendar year.
The representative of the State in the region or collectivity governed by Article 73 of the Constitution communicates to the members of the committee provided for in article L. 2334-37 of the General Local Authorities Code, within one month of its decision, the list of projects subsidised within the jurisdiction of their department or local authority governed by Article 73 of the Constitution. This list is communicated within the same timeframe to the members of Parliament elected in this department or collectivity governed by article 73. The representative of the State in the department sends the members of the committee provided for in article L. 2334-37 and the members of Parliament elected in this department a report on the endowment for each financial year. It submits this report to the committee provided for in the same article L. 2334-37.
Before 31 July of the current financial year, the list of operations that have received a grant as well as the amount of the projects and the grant awarded by the State are published on the official website of the State in the region, in an open and easily reusable format. If this list is amended or supplemented between this publication and the end of the financial year, a corrective or supplementary list is published in the same way before 30th January of the following financial year.
D.-Allocations are entered in the investment section of the beneficiaries’ budget. By way of derogation, when the grant forms part of a contract signed with the State representative, the appropriations allocated under this grant may finance operating expenditure on modernisation and preliminary studies, and be entered in the operating section of their budget, up to a limit of 10% of the total amount allocated to the recipient of the grant. In this case, the grant cannot be renewed.
E.-Refusal to award grants from this endowment may not be based on the fact that this endowment may be combined with other endowments or grants, in compliance with the rules for awarding the latter and Article L. 1111-10, on the small number of inhabitants of the territorial authorities and their groupings mentioned in the first paragraph of this article or on the small amount of the planned operation.