In recent years, the Netherlands has become the most urbanized of all 27 EU countries. This is the conclusion of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) in a report that was published on Monday. The PBL calls this “worrying” and says that the Netherlands will face a “significant challenge” because the European Union is working towards a halt to further urbanization from 2050.
The cabinet wants to build 900,000 homes until 2030, due to the housing shortage and expected population growth. Furthermore, the energy transition and climate change require a redesign of the Dutch landscape, with more space for solar and wind energy, for example.
10 hectares per day
Between 2000 and 2018, on balance, 64,000 hectares of, for example, homes, businesses, construction sites, infrastructure, parks and recreation areas were added in the Netherlands, according to the PBL, an independent advisory body for politics and administration. This amounts to almost 10 hectares per day. By way of comparison: on one hectare there is about a residential block with 20 terraced houses.
A change in spatial planning will be necessary if the Netherlands is to achieve the European target of zero by 2050
David Evers, researcher Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
This year, the European Commission is expected to come up with a target to completely phase out urban expansion in Europe by 2050. This target, which Brussels already formulated in 2011 as the principle No Net Land Takewill become part of a law to keep soil and ecosystems healthy.
“A change in spatial planning will be necessary if the Netherlands wants to achieve the European target of zero in 2050,” says PBL researcher David Evers in a press release. It remains to be seen how binding the objective of Brussels will become and how ‘urbanisation’ will be defined in it. Between 2000 and 2018, for example, the Netherlands also created the most parks, public gardens and urban forests of all EU countries. If this urban green does not count as urbanization, this is ‘favorable’ for the Netherlands in view of European policy, says the PBL.
Half of the Netherlands is agriculture
Putting it into perspective is that ‘only’ 13 percent of the Netherlands is now paved; with houses, businesses, roads, airports, etcetera. More than half of the Netherlands consists of agricultural land and one third of nature and water. The more than 900,000 homes and associated infrastructure that the cabinet wants to build are mainly planned within existing urban areas. The Netherlands currently has more than 8 million homes.
Urbanization in all 27 EU member states increased by more than 1.8 square kilometers per day between 2000 and 2018, according to the PBL study commissioned by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The rate of expansion was highest before the financial crisis in 2008, and then gradually slowed down as the housing market collapsed internationally.
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In relation to the total territory, urbanization has been fastest in the Netherlands. In absolute terms, the Netherlands is number six of all 27 EU member states. Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Estonia and Portugal top the list with the most urbanization or ‘occupation of space’ in hectares.
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