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Sustainable development provides a new framework for urban planners. They must reconsider places threatened by natural hazards or spaces protected because of their important environmental features and services. The Var Valley (Alpes-Maritimes) illustrates the dilemma between local development and protection. A new planning project is being implemented in this valley whose urbanization is constrained by legal rules. This project is based on sustainable development, seeking to create a metropolitan dynamic for Nice and the Côte d'Azur area. The paper aims at studying the difficult conciliation between sustainability and development. For that purpose, we analyze the legal framework: how it is applied in this valley and how the different stakeholders used it. We stress the consequences of the discrepancy between the existing legal rules and the sustainability paradigm.