Hugo de Jonge will breathe a sigh of relief after this Tuesday. If all goes well, the outgoing Minister of the Interior and Housing from the CDA house will have debated the Environment Act with the Senate for the very last time.
This troubled law, intended to simplify spatial planning rules, must finally come into effect on January 1, 2024 after five postponements. But civil servants, architects and software developers are not confident that this is feasible. They outline doomsday scenarios that could bring construction to a dramatic standstill. With lost building permits, municipal officials who cannot guarantee services to citizens and architects who do not even dare to apply for permits for fear of chaos. And with project developers pushing through their own construction plans. As the deadline approaches, the Environmental Act threatens to become an obstacle for architects, civil servants and unsuspecting citizens.
There is no longer any question of postponing the law, Tuesday is about the warnings from civil servants, urban planners and software suppliers that the predicted chaos and yet another ICT drama seem inevitable. With at least delays in spatial planning policy and, in the worst scenario, speculators who can take advantage of the chaos.
De Jonge sticks to his deadline. A new cabinet also needs this Environmental Act to get the public housing plans (900,000 homes in 2030) and the nitrogen policy in order. “Introduction will not go smoothly,” the minister wrote in an email letter to the Senate in preparation for the debate. “But there is confidence that entry into force can be done responsibly.”
The law that bundles all rules in the field of spatial planning and environmental permits would result in less bureaucracy and more effective regulations. But a national digital database, the DSO, that should make all this possible, is not getting off the ground sufficiently and, according to experts, threatens to become one of the government’s most expensive IT projects (estimated costs of 2 billion euros).
Municipal officials who have to work with the new law from January 1, 2024, expect to be the victims. Software suppliers also assume chaos and delays in procedures. From one leaked earlier this month internal presentation it appears that the national database is not yet able to provide the requested information. More than half of the submitted applications disappear into a digital hole or are declared invalid for unclear reasons. And many municipalities cannot use the software at all, even if it functions – due to a lack of staff or because the organization is insufficiently prepared for it.
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Longer waiting times
In Flevoland, the Courts of Audit involved investigated last month whether the province and the municipalities involved can get started with the new law. That is not yet the case, resulting in longer waiting times. And on top of that is the faltering DSO database. “This digital counter is essential to maintain government services,” said Court of Audit Chairman Robert Douma. “Conversations with civil servants and administrators show that there are concerns about the operation and stability of the digital counter, especially due to delays in the development of the national part of this system.”
Architects can also hardly cope with the new regulations, as became apparent earlier this month after a further training course organized by the Trade Association of Dutch Architectural Firms (BNA). It was unclear to the hundred students, all BNA architects, what to do with it in practice. Most people learned one thing from it: when the law comes into force, most people will no longer dare to submit a permit application. Too much risk, too much uncertainty. “The law is like a new car that cannot yet be sold,” says director Wico Ankersmit of the Association of Building and Housing Supervision Netherlands, who gave the course.
Lieuwe Koopmans, advisor at Tercera, one of the larger software suppliers for municipalities and provinces, can describe the IT drama as follows: delays, ambiguities, chaos. “Urban planning agencies that cannot communicate with municipalities. Or zoning plans that get stuck in the systems, causing project developers to know prematurely what a municipality wants in terms of planning.” According to Koopmans, a financial drama is also unfolding. “And by the end of 2024, the promised benefits of that digital database will be further away than ever.”
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