Development agreements in Dutch planning Sample Clauses

Development agreements in Dutch planning. In the Dutch process of project development, land occupation and land development are crucial. A landlord is allowed to develop his own lot. The municipality however, wants to manage the spatial development and strives for a good spatial quality and a just distribution of costs and benefits of land development. This is impossible without a legal foundation. The Wro (abbreviation of ‘Wet Ruimtelijke Ordening’, or Spatial Planning Act) gives municipalities the possibility to manage spatial development, and the Grexwet (abbreviation of ‘Grondexploitatiewet’ or Land Development Act) gives municipalities instruments to manage private land development (Van den Brand et al, 2008). The Netherlands had a history of admittance planning (‘toelatingsplanologie’), in which a government would make a plan for desirable development of a certain area (Dammers et al., 2004), or planning by permission, regulating, and zoning (Xxxxxxxx Altes, 2006). However, when was concluded that more often a gap emerged between the spatial plans and the actual spatial developments, the term development planning (‘ontwikkelingsplanologie’) was created, where the active initiation of development by governments and private parties was important (Dammers et al., 2004) to facilitate development (Xxxxxxxx Altes, 2006). The ultimate goal should be that the facilitation of development (ontwikkelingsplanologie) should not replace the planning by permission (toelatingsplanologie) but should strengthen the zoning and regulating (Xxxxxxxx Altes, 2006). In 2000, the VROM-raad (an independent council that gives advice to the government and parliament on sustainability issues regarding housing, environment and land) published a statement in which was argued that the current Dutch zoning plans are cumbersome due to time consuming procedures, high costs and difficulties to keep them up to date. Furthermore, the VROM-raad stated a new instrument should be implemented (which is called the ‘management regulation’) especially in urban areas. The management regulation would be a reviewing framework and make user policies in a broad sense, therefore it also includes construction policies. It was implemented in the new Spatial Planning Act as ‘zoning plan light’ as a cheaper and more efficient alternative of the regular zoning plans (Nirov, 2012). One of the crucial building blocks of Dutch planning is the zoning plan (‘bestemmingsplan’). A normal Dutch zoning plan has three functions: a planning function, a deve...