The Territorial Coherence Plan (Schéma de Cohérence Territoriale - SCoT) is the central French urban planning instrument of intercommunity, which combines the management of several sectorial policies and multi-scalar coordination with the objectives of designing more sustainable cities. Therefore, the SCoTs are expected: a) to help improving the planning procedures through the institution of better adapted territories to challenges, b) the dialogue between actors and civil society and, finally, c) to act for the sustainability of cities. Thus, the lessons learnt from this work relate to the translation of "sustainable city" reference system and analyzes the decision making process by stakeholders during the development of the SCoTs. These analyzes, carried through two study cases (the urban intercommunity of Montpellier “Communauté d’agglomération de Montpellier CAM and the urban region of Grenoble “region urbaine grenobloise” RUG), are based on the analysis of the content of two Scots and other documentary sources, on interviews with actors and on observation of workshops and deliberative meetings during the development of the document. This study highlights the development of a planner based on a larger planning scale vision, the better consideration of environmental issues and control urban sprawl by two SCoTs, acting for building more sustainable cities. However, the SCoTs are different relating to the construction of the project perimeter, more coherent and sustainable in the RUG than in the CAM, and relating to their democratic balance in decision-making. This is due to their specific contexts that sometimes become more influential than the Scots, in the effectiveness of public action.
