Another brick in the law. Hoe individuele belangen hun weg vinden naar de planningswetgeving in Vlaanderen

In Flanders, the northern region of Belgium, the Flemish government's strategic planning ambitions to preserve open space have been diametrically opposed to the ongoing pattern of urban sprawl. While the Flemish planning system is, in principle, plan-led, based on strategic visions and area-specific land-use plans, in practice it tends to follow a development-led logic driven by individual project proposals. This PhD research deepens and nuances existing assessments of this 'implementation gap' by adopting an actor-centred and incremental historical institutionalist perspective. To capture the full complexity of this incremental process, the research focuses on one set of legal provisions that is particularly illustrative: the fundamental rights to renovate, extend, and rebuild residential dwellings in non-residential zones in land-use plans (i.e. non-conforming dwellings). It involved an analysis of press releases and policy documents, combined with an interactive actor-interaction-set analysis applied in elite interviews with 32 key actors, including ministers, special (ministerial) advisers, civil servants, members of parliament, mayors and alderpersons, lawyers, and representatives of interest groups. In line with existing neo-institutionalist and critical planning literature, the research confirms that, to be effective, planning institutions must extend beyond legal frameworks and account for historically rooted norms, values, and cultural-cognitive assumptions. The key contribution of this single-case study is that when such legitimacy fails to take root, plan-led approaches risk reinforcing the very development-led practices they are designed to curtail. Individual development interests may then escalate from single project proposals to widely recognised problems requiring legislative action. In metaphorical terms, they may amount to just another brick in the law.