The obduracy of the detached single family house in Flanders

Abstract

After the Second World War, Belgium, and especially the Flemish region, was confronted with massive suburbanisation. The single family house became the dominant building type located in residential subdivisions, ribbon developments or as piecemeal developments scattered through the landscape. Today, there are growing concerns about the future of the post-war suburban housing stock in the light of the changing demographics, economics and an increasing ecological consciousness. Incremental modification, through the creation of secondary dwelling units in existing underused dwellings, is one of the strategies currently discussed to transform low-density residential neighbourhoods into more sustainable patterns. However, practice shows that the subdivision of detached single family houses still remains a rather marginal phenomenon in Flanders. This article analyses the ‘obduracy’ of the detached single family house in detail. Our analysis shows the obduracy as the result of a complex entanglement of very heterogeneous elements such as the materiality of the house, the meaning of home, the local home culture, real estate values, spatial policies, zoning plans and legislative framework. If the creation of secondary units would be adopted by the government as a transformation strategy for the suburban housing stock, then its implementation will demand a clear spatial vision on the future of residential neighbourhoods, an integral policy with linkages between the different policy sectors and different levels of administration, and a comprehensive set of measures.

Keywords:

• detached single family houses
• obduracy
• accessory dwelling units
• secondary units

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grant#G.0599.10 from The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) for the research project ‘Large underused dwellings in Flanders. Development of architectural and users’ strategies in view of demographic trends and ecological constraints’ carried out at the KU Leuven and the PHL University College, headed by Professors Hilde Heynen, Koenraad Van Cleempoel, Dominique Vanneste and Michael Ryckewaert.

Notes

1. On the basis of a cluster analysis, 10 municipalities were selected with a high share of underused houses, taking into account the geographical spread over the region and the degree of urbanisation: Overijse, Sint-Martens-Latem and Aartselaar, part of the agglomeration of Brussels, Ghent and Antwerpen, respectively; Lubbeek and Alken, located in the urban fringe of the regional cities of Leuven and Hasselt, respectively; Keerbergen, Aalter and Retie, located in the commuter zones of Brussels, Ghent and Turnhout, respectively; and Lummen and Wortegem-Petegem located in a rural residential zone. In each of these municipalities, based on a cluster analysis at the neighbourhood level as well as on the morphology, neighbourhoods were selected for the fieldwork.

2. All inhabitants of the selected neighbourhoods were contacted by letters (in Dutch) and a response rate of approximately 3% was achieved. This percentage is reasonable (see for example Meeus & De Decker, 2012) for intensive qualitative research in Flanders: we were mainly looking for ‘empty nesters’ and no pressure was exerted when our letters remained unanswered. Additionally, some respondents were found through snowball sampling. We conducted, between September 2010 and December 2012, 61 semi-structured, in-depth interviews which varied between 44 and 117 minutes, with an average duration of 73 minutes. During our 61 home interviews we interviewed 91 people, 49 men and 42 women. The age varied between 31 and 87 years, with an average of 64 years. The majority, 65 of 91 respondents, had followed post-secondary education. Our respondents had been living in their houses between 1 and 53 years, with an average of 28 years. From the 91 respondents, 55 were retired, 22 had a full-time job, 9 had a part-time job and 5 considered themselves to be a homemakers. The gross surface of the visited houses varied between 189 and 775 m², with an average of 376 m². The plot surfaces varied between 399 and 15,363 m², with an average of 2054 m². Of the 61 houses, 44 had been built by the current home owners, 16 houses were bought from the previous owner and 1 house was inherited. The age of the houses varied between 8 and 62 years, with an average of 34 years. Rather than achieving statistically representative results, the goal of our research was to explore the experiences, beliefs and future plans of the inhabitants of large, underused dwellings. All interviews were transcribed, imported and coded within the NVivo10 software package. The quotes in this article illustrate the main trends that emerged from our analysis.

3. Our 30 key figures consisted of 9 representatives of the local government or planning administration, 6 local real estate agents, 3 professionals involved with housing for the elderly, 1 building contractor specialised in houses with accessory dwellings units and 1 representative of the Flemish Building Confederation. Co-researcher Marijn van de Weijer, affiliated with the KU Leuven and the PHL University College, additionally interviewed 10 architects and urban planners.

4. Flanders is the northern, Dutch-speaking region of the federal state Belgium, and excludes the French-speaking Walloon Region and the bilingual Brussels Capital region. Flanders has a large governmental autonomy including spatial planning, urbanism and housing policies. This autonomy has gradually increased starting from the 1960s – meaning that up till that point in time, planning, urbanism and housing were regulated by the Belgian state, and not yet by the Flemish region.

5. A first step for this is provided in the research of co-researcher Marijn van de Weijer, affiliated with the KU Leuven and the PHL University College, which focuses on the subdivision potential of detached single family houses in Flanders.