If it is up to Minister Ollongren, July 1, 2022 is the date on which the Environment Act will enter into force. The Environment Act replaces dozens of laws and hundreds of ministerial regulations and AMvBs in the field of what we now call environmental law: spatial planning, environment, nature, water and many other sub-aspects.
Throughout this year, we will use various publications to give you insight into the impact of the Environment Act on environmental law as we know it today. Among other things, this will be based on the six 'core instruments' of the Environment Act for utilizing and protecting the physical living environment. These are the environmental vision, the program, decentralized rules, general national rules, the environmental permit and the project decision.
The environmental plan
This first publication focuses on the environmental plan. This article provides insight into what an environmental plan is and what it regulates. Furthermore, we explain how the environmental plan differs from the zoning plan, which we have known for many decades as the instrument for spatial planning in which municipalities include construction and use options for specific lands.
Zoning plan gives way to one environmental plan per municipality
The environmental plan is the replacement for the zoning plan, amendment plan, development plan and management order from the Spatial Planning Act (Wro). Currently, municipalities have multiple zoning plans for their territories. Under the Environment Act, which takes effect July 1, 2022, each municipality must adopt a single environment plan for its entire territory. In doing so, municipalities will be given room to design the environmental plan "more global and flexible" than zoning plans. That flexibility is one of the goals of the Environment Act.
From good spatial planning to a safe and healthy physical environment
The current Wro provides that the municipal council establishes one or more zoning plans for the entire territory of the municipality. In those zoning plans, for the purpose of good spatial planning, destinations are designated and rules are set for that purpose.
The concept of 'good spatial planning' will cease to exist when the Environment Act comes into force. Before that, the Environment Act will focus on the concept of 'safe and healthy physical living environment and good environmental quality'. Although in case law more and more components could fall under 'good spatial planning,' the environmental plan really has a broader scope than a zoning plan. That is directly also the most striking difference from the zoning plan. This thus creates more opportunities for municipalities to give environmental aspects, such as odor, particulate matter, safety and health, a place in the environmental plan.
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Balance in allocation of functions to locations
Specifically, the environmental plan regulates the balance in the allocation of functions to locations. A function of a location can be, for example, office or residential, but a location can also have multiple functions. The function designation can then be accompanied by rules indicating which activities may or may not be carried out at that location and under what conditions. All this still from the perspective of a safe and healthy physical living environment. The municipality can then set rules in the environmental plan regarding permit requirements, notification requirements and prohibitions.
From state-level rules to municipal customization
The Environment Act assumes "decentralized, unless. Many rules that are now set at the national level will be regulated at the local level. The advantage is that the rules can thus be tailored to a specific location: customization. This includes, for example, rules on catering, recreation and retail activities.
For example: for a catering establishment, noise standards are now included in the Activities Decree. These rules will be scrapped and rules about this will have to be included in the environmental plan. The most directly effective government rules on noise will be included in the so-called "dowry" after the Environment Act comes into force(also read this article), but municipalities are expected to provide location-specific customization.
Rules from municipal ordinances part of environmental plan
Not only state rules will be transferred to the environmental plan. Rules currently contained in municipal regulations will also be transferred to the environmental plan. Think of rules in the General Local Bye-Law (APV), the Monuments Bye-Law, the Berths Bye-Law and the Housing Bye-Law. Rules about entrances and exits, monuments, moorings and residential separation will thus be found in the environmental plan in the future.
The purpose of the rules in the environmental plan
With this 'clustering' of rules, the environmental plan aims to give citizens and businesses immediate (full) insight into which rules apply at a particular location. These can in fact be found via the 'Rules on the Map' section of the Digital System for the Environment Act (DSO), which replaces the website www.ruimtelijkeplannen.nl, among others.
With a coherent approach to the physical living environment, the environmental plan - at least that is the aim - makes clear which activities can be carried out under which conditions within a certain boundary relative to each other.
No rules on feasibility
In the environmental plan, the municipal council is given a great deal of freedom to assign functions to locations. Under the current system of the Spatial Planning Act (and Decree), a municipal council, when assigning a function and including possibilities for use in a zoning plan, must demonstrate that the development is (financially) feasible. That feasibility test will disappear, or at least it will be designed differently.
When assigning one (or more) function(s) to a location in an environmental plan, a municipality no longer needs to make a plausible case that an assigned function will actually be there. The municipality merely indicates in its environmental plan that a function 'may' be established at a certain location and only has to motivate that a development at the specific location is in principle possible. In other words: not obviously impracticable.
This way of assigning one (or more) function(s) to a location is less far-reaching than the current legislation. Only when a concrete initiative arises that fits within the allocated function is it investigated "how" it can be realized in an acceptable manner. The advantage of this is that (the majority of) the research burden will only occur in the case of a concrete initiative.
Pros and cons of the environmental plan for developers
An environmental plan will allow (and require) municipalities to regulate more than the current zoning plans. After all, an environmental plan aims to provide the fullest possible insight into all aspects of the physical living environment. Often this will come down to the merging of regulations, which are scattered in the current regulations. This immediately identifies the biggest advantage of the environmental plan.
The downside of merging, however, is clarity. Bringing so many rules together in one place runs the risk of creating a confusing jungle of rules. The user-friendliness - also highly dependent on the digitization task - will have to be proven in practice.
Do you want clarity on whether your building plan fits within the zoning plan? For a fixed price, our specialists will investigate the possibilities. Click here for more information about our Zoning Quickscan.
