Urban Land‐Use and Building Control in The Netherlands: Flexible Decisions in a Rigid System

In: Law & policy, Volume 11, Issue 2, p. 121-151

Abstract

In the Netherlands, the system of rules concerning land‐use and building at first sight seems rigid. A closer look, however, discloses a remarkable amount of flexibility partly authorized by 'hidden' legal possibilities. In assessing applications for building permits officials generally rely primarily not on the rules of building ordinances but on professional norms of good construction practice. A case‐study of land‐use planning shows a decision‐process characterized by coalition‐building which produces plans that are constantly changed to meet shifting external political and economic constraints. Such practices tend to endanger the normative goals of legal certainty and public accountability. To characterize the decision‐processes involved as 'rule‐application' or 'rule‐enforcement' is not adequate. Firstly, because it tends to reduce the complex working of a rule to the imposition of pre‐existing legal standards. Secondly, because the structure of the actors and their relationships is far more complex than a dichotomy of the 'regulator' and 'the regulated' suggests.