Whose Permits? The Tenacity of Permissive Development Control in Flanders

Abstract

This paper explains how a permissive planning permit system is embedded in Belgian/Flemish society and how this contributes to urban sprawl. We base our analysis on an institutionalist approach as developed in previous and current research and analyse the Flemish planning permit system since 1962 as one of different interacting planning systems, all (re)produced, maintained, transformed and struggled over by specific individual and collective actors and shaped by a range of institutional dynamics. The analysis shows how in the dynamics of the Flemish planning permit system, a general struggle between actors defending property-based private initiative and actors arguing for collective action in space is especially apparent. In this struggle, property ownership expressed through a permissive planning permit system and limited enforcement of regulations is seen to be predominant, especially in the 1960s, 1980s and 2000s. Changes in the 1990s, making the planning permit system more strict, have partly and momentarily challenged the institutional frame which structures the predominant planning permit practice, but left the logic of individual property largely untouched. Today, the Flemish planning permit system has again been reoriented towards the protection of private property, which hampers the capacity of government to implement a coherent spatial policy.

Keywords:

• spatial planning system
• planning permit
• development control
• institutionalism
• strategic-relational approach

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the support by the Flemish government for the research this paper is based on. We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their pertinent comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This paper is based on research within the research project SP2SP (2005–2009) funded by the Institute for Scientific Research and Technology Development of the Flemish government (IWT), and research within the Flemish Policy Centre for Housing and Space (2007–2011) funded by the Flemish government.

Notes

1. In 1980 spatial planning became a full competence of the Belgian regions. This triggered a gradual development of proper Flemish regulations and practices. But until today some aspects of the previous Belgian system are active.

2. This was extensively criticized in the first issue of the Flemish Journal of Urbanism and Spatial Planning (STERO), by—among others—professors M. Anselin and R. Soetewey and civil servant L. Hendrickx, supported by minister of public works Jos De Saeger (Anselin et al., 1967). The misuse of the allotment permit has also been described by Renard (1995). See also Braem and Strauven (2010) and interviews with urban planner and Professor Jef Van den Broeck in (2008).

3. See among others interviews with civil servants Roger Liekens, Arnold De Smet, and Jos Lorent, planning practitioners Herman Baeyens, Jef Van den Broeck, former ministers Wivina De Meester and Luc Dhoore and prof. Charles Vermeersch. See also Anselin et al. (1967), Knops et al. (1992) and Baelus (1996).

4. In 1970 Belgian devolution took a start. In 1980 regional governments were created and competences of spatial planning were transferred from the Belgian to the regional governments of Flanders and Wallonia and in 1989 to the Brussels regional government.