Theme

Commission en direct wrote an article on their colleagues at the European Commission who joined the citizen science project 'AirCasting' of BRAL and Cosmopolis.

Commission en direct is the journal for the employees of the European Commission. They interviewed Christine van Wunnik, member of the citizen science group that partakes in the AirCasting project. During her daily cycling commute, Christine collects data on the air quality in Brussels. This is what she learned:

I learned that smell is not necessarily an indication for fine dust pollution and that it is useful to -literally - stay a few meters away from cars and buses.

How does she think their measurements can help policy makers? 

Our measurements can provide input to debates that influence the future air quality in Brussels, such as the development of the new mobility plan for the European Commission.

You can read the full article in the attachment below. Thank you, Cyprian Begu, for letting us share this article. And thank you to Christine and all the other participants of AirCasting for collecting valuable data on the air quality in Brussels!

Do you want to learn more about what you can do? Contact tim[at]bral.brussels or lievin[at]bral.brussels.

Remember how we attended The International Assembly of the Commons in Utrecht last summer? Well, since then we kept in touch virtually with numerous commoners we met during that week in July. As several of them live in and around Berlin, we decided to go see them face to face to learn about how their initiatives had evolved and to exchange experiences. It turned out to be a hot Spring in Berlin as we arrived in the midst of debates about the temporary use of land, renting madness and urban commons. Something we’re not entirely unfamiliar with in Brussels …

A housing crisis ... in Brussels

A while ago, the gate of Toestand’s Biestebroek project was sprayed with the inscription: “Ok avec la gentrification?” On the facades of Atelier Groot Eiland, Le Phare du Channel and a café in Sint-Gilles, critical messages about this subject appeared as well. Why?, we could ask ourselves.

The current legislation of the City of Brussels radically states in its governance document for 2014-2018 that urban development investments are key to revive Brussels. A dilapidating city is not good for anyone, but we at BRAL thoroughly question the way this development is implemented and for whom it is done. Are projects of temporary use or a crowdfunded café really what makes a neighbourhood gentrify? The process of gentrification is complex with many factors influencing its mechanisms. For BRAL, the key answer to gentrification is the access to affordable housing. Already in 2013, we protested against the stealthy change in Brussel during “De Grote Woning Marathon”. We asked the government to build more public and social housing and to regulate the prices on the private rental market. So you see this struggle is nothing new. It is becoming only more profound for an increasing share of the population.

Brussels is the only major city in Belgium where the majority of the population rents: 61.3% in 2016 (the national average is 34%). Rents have increased faster than incomes and, in general, the Brussels population is becoming poorer. In concrete terms, this means that families with an income of at most 1,500 euros must spend an average of 60% of their budget on renting (BBRoW). Over the last 15 years, the rent for housing in the capital has approximately doubled. After all, the number of inhabitants has increased, in contrast to the number of houses on offer. The gap between income and rents is reaching alarming proportions and an increasing number of people and families no longer have access to affordable and decent housing. To this date, the Brussels Region has not taken any action to deal with the disproportionate increase in rents or even the wrong rents (BBRoW).

These circumstances are not just confined to Brussels. Problems with access to housing are also increasing in Berlin and other cities worldwide.

A housing crisis … in Berlin

Eerie wastelands, communist-era housing blocks and gaps in residential streets where houses were bombed: Berlin is a city full of quirks in the urban landscape, the results of its unique history. A poor city, where you can still get around on a low budget drawing all types of people in, most recently the young and creative. When we talk to a shop-owner wandering the streets of Prenzlauerberg we get into a discussion about how the city has changed. Dirk no longer wants to live in the city, he and his family plan to move to what Germans call the Speckgordel, the green belt around the city. It is quieter to live there with a small child. At the moment it is rather difficult in the block they live where people are up until three AM making loud noises.

“In the past you asked to take it down a notch but now the party people are just screaming back: ‘Yo, we are in Berlin dude!’.” Read the full conversation with Dirk here.

Unlike in Belgium and other European countries, most people rent in Germany. In Berlin, 85% of all residents live in rental housing; in the past decade, the average rent on new contracts has increased by 75%. In addition to this price increase, there is a huge shortage of affordable housing (with half the population qualifying for public housing) - the city needs an estimated 200,000 more apartments to house its thriving population. Meanwhile, luxury developments are constructed everywhere. Real estate speculation is a relatively new phenomenon here and it throws the system out of balance.

If a shift like this affects 85% of a city’s population, a substantial critical mass has the power to take action when this evolution goes one bridge too far and threatens their livelihood! At the moment we were in Berlin, a complete week was dedicated to the issue of rising rents. Mietenwahnsinn (rental madness) consisted of meetings and actions during 10 days in April leading to a demonstration against the extreme rise in rents on the 10th day. BRAL was there and took its reflections back to Brussels.

Where are we at? Temporary use under speculative pressure

Many bottom-up initiatives are facing intense pressure because of price hikes in rents and land value in Berlin. The amount of space that can be used for cultural and common-good oriented projects is decreasing.  Many of them have functioned as isolated, alternative spaces, but currently people are realising it's time they start connecting in order to find ways to collectively resist the changes happening in the city. Mietenwahnsinn expresses this need to act together, as rising rents and lack of space affects the majority of the people.

In Brussels, we also experience the consequences of space getting scarcer, even more pressingly than in Berlin you could say, as we never had their amount of urban wastelands. However the issues at stake in Brussels are somewhat different because, for example, more people own their house here. Still, people in Brussels also seem to want to connect and create alliances for their actions in order to weigh more on political decisions that determine the outlook of the city. Think of the Sustainable Citizens Assembly of May 2017 and more recently in June the Citizens Festival: Dialogue en Humanité. Think of the Brussels Transition Network that connects initiatives that want to act locally for a more sustainable world,  the online platform Brussels Together or initiatives like Civic Innovation Network that try to find new ways of collaboration between businesses, collectives, and the government. After all, it is about thinking forward and acting beyond our own individual interests to tackle the urban challenges we face today.

Prinzessinnengärten, end of lease: 2019

To learn more about the Berlin context in which local common initiatives operate, we passed by Prinzessinnengärten and participated in the Commons-Abendschule. Prinzessinnengärten is located on a site about the size of a soccer field. The patch of land, located at Moritzplatz in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood between Prinzenstraße, Oranienstraße and Prinzessinnenstraße, is owned by the city and was an urban wasteland for half a century. Nomadisch Grün (Nomadic Green) launched the garden as a pilot project in the summer of 2009. Along with friends, activists and neighbours, the group cleared away rubbish, built transportable organic vegetable plots and reaped the first fruits of their labour. To get to know more about the project, have a look at this interview with one of the founders, Marco Clausen.

Since 2009, many efforts have been made to keep the site from private hands. A petition launched in 2012 was signed by more than 30,000 people. It received support from the mayor of Friederichshein-Kreuzberg and concordantly by the Parliament of the Borough. In October, the Berlin Senate acknowledged the ‘pilot function’ of the garden. The board of the public property fund retransferred the property of Moritzplatz to the Borough. Still, the threat of privatization is real: the lease of Prinzessinnengärten with the local government runs until the end of 2018. The possible privatization of this land could lead to the relocation of the garden to a different site or to the ending of the project.

This situation has led to a weekly get-together called the Commons-Abendschule. It is a moment open to everyone who wants to find a solution to the possible privatization of the land Prinzessinnengärten is on. Many other collectives have found, are finding, or will find themselves in a similar situation. This is why a variety of collectives come and share their experiences at the Commons-Abendschule. Together, they want to plan for a commons-oriented future of the garden inspired by CLT standards. A working group at district level is trying to develop instruments for permanently withdrawing places from the market and managing them together with users, neighbours and politicians in a public welfare-oriented and cooperative manner. In that sense the work established around the Prinzessinnengärten project can serve as a prelude for the overall change happening in Berlin and even other cities.

Josaphat: future unclear

At Josaphat (municipality of Schaarbeek, Brussels) nobody is ‘leasing’ the land from the city as the negotiations for a convention between the initiatives that are temporarily using a part of the site and the government are still ongoing. However, the land is also publicly owned and will soon become largely privatised. BRAL has followed the development of this site from up close for years. You can read more about the plans and our opinion here. Negotiations about a part of the neighbourhood being build according to CLT standards are still ongoing but unclear. We can look at the fact that there is dialogue as a tiny step forwards but we really need more than that!

123 searching for a new location

Let’s take a look at another Brussels situation: Woningen123Logements. The 123 develops and federates innovative projects to offer concrete responses to the current housing crisis. However, they will soon lose the building as they are also at the end of their ‘lease’ with the Region of Wallonia. The Koningsstraat 123 has been occupied for eleven years according to an agreement of temporary occupation. However, in November 2017, the Walloon Region sold it to Upgrade Estate, a private company specialising in student housing.

These changes raise quite a few questions for us. Shouldn’t public goods stay public good? Or at least maintain a public function? Aren’t we passing off what is collectively ours to the private market all too easily?

What can we do? 

How can we keep buildings and land that are in the hands of the public, (partially) public or commonly owned? How can we realize a shift in mentality that can establish structural change? BRAL sees an opportunity in new forms of collaboration with the city.

They say the commons could be an answer to this crisis. That the commons would allow us to treat our resources - in the broadest sense of the word - with respect and a generative demeanour, rather than an extractive neo-liberal one. Commons offer an alternative vision for that which belongs to us all, both material and immaterial, and are only activated through the social practice of sharing and negotiating. These practices, as part of a growing worldwide movement, seek to bring about systemic change and societal transformation beyond market and state.

From city dweller to co-manager

In our previous article, the city of Bologna, Italy showed us that governments can view citizens as more than mere passive city dwellers or consumers. Bologna’s urban commons initiative began in May 2014, when the city council passed landmark legislation, Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of Urban Commons. This agreement between the local government and the citizens turns the latter into active co-managers of the resources they use in cities. It is a milestone reconceptualization of how governments can work in cooperation with citizens.  People are invited to co-design the city, to manage public spaces, urban green zones, abandoned buildings and other urban issues (David Bollier). BRAL values the active involvement of citizens in the cocreation of cities, but does warn against overburdening people with responsibilities that used to be the government’s. Read more about it in Dutch of French (forthcoming) in the chapter ‘Mélange compliqué bij Parckfarm’ in our publication ‘Burgers in de Brusselse keuken’.

A global fight against speculators

Some cities are shifting their mentality and are taking steps towards structural change. Only a few weeks ago, several cities worldwide singed a joint declaration against property speculation. It is a wish list of five points, initiated by Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau. Other signatories are Berlin, Durban, Lisbon, London, Montreal, Montevideo, New York, Paris and Seoul. It is clear that cities face the same problems: city centers are becoming uninhabitable for low and middle-income families as commercial speculators buy up properties for the sole purpose of reselling or renting them out for a profit. The message is, above all, an appeal to their own local councils and national governments. By working together, the message may make a bigger impression on the government, says the Amsterdam spokesman. “It helps if we can say in The Hague: we can also see this in London, Paris and Berlin.” (De Volkskrant). Why wasn’t there a spokesman for Brussels standing up for our rights?

Can we motivate our local politicians to join these forces and take care of its people with a gaze on the future? After our exchange with several Berlin based initiatives, we only feel more motivated to fight for structural change in Brussels, to keep public what is public, to create more accessible housing, to build a system that will prevent land and property speculation, to collectively own and govern different services and goods. We are sure that building alliances between commoners in Brussels and throughout cities in Europe will encourage us to keep on going. We can assure you that BRAL will maintain working on this. Some concrete ideas are currently taking shape … so stick around and join the #commonsnetwork!

Contact toha[at]bral.brussels if you want to learn more about the Berlin-Brussels Commons connection!

The European Court of Justice has ruled in favour of the citizens & Client Earth taking Brussels region to court over air quality! BRAL congratulates Clean Air Brussels and Client Earth on this important decision in their case.

The court ruled that "Compliance with air pollution limits must be assessed at monitoring stations where people’s exposure to pollution is the greatest, not with an average across an area."

The head of the clean air team of Client Earth, Ugo Taddei, said: “We’re very happy with the court’s decision. Brussels citizens have a right to clean air and they can breathe a little bit easier knowing that Europe’s top court has upheld that right today. The Brussels authorities must now adopt an air quality plan which meets legal standards and monitor the air quality in a way that gives an accurate picture of the levels of air pollution in the city.”

One of the claimants in the case, Lies Craeynest said: “We are delighted that the Court of Justice confirmed today what we have known for a long time: we are entitled to take our government to court to ensure they monitor air quality accurately and provide us with accurate information."

The next step is the Brussels' court to give the final verdict.

More info: 

Everywhere in Brussels, people are helping each other out in these special Corona times.

BRAL reached out to Corvia, one of our Selfcity initiatives. Like many others, Corvia urgently needs masks. Do you have some or can you make some? You can find an official pattern here. Send or bring them at any time to Lindestraat 405, 1140 Evere.

Want to know more about Corvia and their FREE GO? Check out the video they made with us and Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles.

Last weekend, Schaerbeek residents painted this mandala to (try to) slow down cars and improve traffic safety.
Will the chalk of the mandala outlast the paint of the zebra crossing?  Whatever the case: let's make Helmet safer for pedestrians and cyclists!

More info on the LOOPER project by MOBI VUB and BRAL.Brussels on http://looperproject.eu

The corona virus locked us in our houses, but not for long anymore. From Lahore over Texas to Helsinki, people can’t wait to reclaim the streets. Global movement #makespaceforpeople believes that its time to decolonize the city of cars. They have our support!

#makespaceforpeople is a global movement, with its roots in Brussels, advocating for more space for people during - to enable physical distancing - but also after the Covid-19 crisis.

Merely two Facebook posts in an Urbanism & Placemaking group. That’s all it took for over 240 people (and counting) from Lahore, Sydney, NYC, Texas, Helsinki, Budapest, Brussels, London, Vienna, the Philippines and many more to join the movement as #makespaceforpeople Ambassadors.

People from all over the world with a variety of profiles, going from trained urbanists & architects to activists, enthusiasts, students but all of them sharing the same dream: Redistribute the space that was colonized by cars, so people can move in active and safe ways through their local cities.

After the first video conference, #makespaceforpeople Ambassador Kick-Off meeting, the expectations and needs of all the different members became clear and could be summarized in three objectives:

  • Exchange knowledge, experiences & good/bad practices about their local reality
  • Build a repository/collection/book that collects information on (Tactile) Urbanism and Urban Activism
  • And last but definitely not least was the need to learn how to set up creative and effective actions/campaigns to push our policymakers to take the much needed steps towards redistributing the public space.

In the next days, different task forces will be created depending on the skills and interests of the Ambassadors. Furthermore, due to the difficulty to perform collective, physical actions in public space, the activism will rely mostly on combining online activism with creative actions, transforming photos from different cities into an attractive visual illustrating the need for more space for people. It goes without saying that more creative actions will emerge in the next few weeks. (Check out the first video from Brussels!)  To be continued…

Want to join? You can like and follow the Facebook page, send your own pictures into the stratosphere of good or bad practices of people cueing in the streets with #makespaceforpeople or become involved in the Facebook group.

Links:
#makespaceforpeople FB group
Make Space for People Page

After three years of action research on community development in three different living labs of Brussels, our project comes to a close. Over seventy people attended the final visit and round table of the CitizenDev project. This audience was comprised of practitioners, civil servants, academics and engaged citizens. ‘Self-management’ proved a hot topic to most of them.

What elements of good community development would you like to use in your neighbourhood or work environment? After learning about the nine building blocks implemented by the CitizenDev project guided by the principles of Asset-Based Community Development, the participants in the final round table of the project could chose some of the blocks as the methods they would like to use themselves. They chose 'self-management for residents', 'a place that is managed by residents' and ‘connecting people to each other’. And – a bit to my surprise - 'political interpellation'. Although civil servants were well represented, next to employees of NGO’s, researchers and citizens, I did not sense a fear of mixing participatory urban development with political debates.

Most people who attended the round table shared the main premise of the CitizenDev project: communities should develop by stimulating citizens to take their future and the wellbeing of their community in their own hands, by giving them the opportunity to join forces and decide and manage their own initiatives based on their talents and passions. However, they argued, this should not result in less involvement of the authorities nor in less public investment in the poor neighbourhoods. Therefore, residents involved in do-it-yourself initiatives, local administrations and politicians should engage in a dialogue with one another, according to several of the participants.

Stimulating citizens to take the development of their communities in their own hands should not result in less involvement or investment of the authorities.

We are convinced, as are most participants, that developing our city can and should become a process of co-creation. Citizens should no longer be viewed as merely consumers of professional services. Citizens can join administrations, politicians and neighbourhood workers as actors and co-producers of the urban environment. This is the way to go for our urban development policy.

Use largescale public programmes to invest in assets

This sounds easy enough. However, when you give the matter a deeper look, how can we accomplish this? While several questions remain, one of the main conclusions of the day is that it is time to upscale the experiment, both in terms of theme as size.

Our experiments with Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) in CitizenDev and in the Sustainable Neighbourhood Contract Athenée in Ixelles indicate that it is possible to mobilise people and create an avalanche of energetic bottom-up initiatives, which try to improve their neighbourhood in a myriad of ways. Our visit to Matongé introduced the participants to some of the more or less 20 citizen initiatives that are the result of the ABCD approach.
These initiatives remain small-scaled however, involving a total budget of less than 150.000 euros over the duration of the project, managed by citizens. The interaction between these small initiatives and the ones run by the local authorities was unfortunately very limited. So how can we upscale the ABCD approach? How can we use our methods to transform the entire programme of a Sustainable Neighbourhood Contract, with its real estate projects and its renewal of public space, into a bottom-up process?

CitizenDev has proven that citizens are not only capable of managing projects for social wellbeing, culture or production. They can run the “hard stuff” as well.

In any case, CitizenDev has proven that citizens are not only capable of managing projects for social wellbeing (e.g. a gift shop for second hand clothing), culture (e.g. promotion of ancient African games) or production (e.g. the kitchen start-up „Green Cantine“), but that they can run the “hard stuff” as well. Our experiment in the Brabant neighbourhood in Schaerbeek has shown that citizens can manage the renewal of public infrastructure (transforming a former shop into the headquarters of the local community) if only they get the keys and full responsibility. The citizen groups ‘Rue du Conseil/Mixelles’ and ‘Green Ixelles’ have been the driving forces of the greening and traffic calming of some streets and squares in Ixelles. Surely, the bigger projects, including the actual building or heavy transformations of real estate, still demand a professional management. Can citizens play a more important part in planning, designing and running those projects?

Some participants to the CitizenDev round table stressed the need of more time to map local assets and dreams as an answer to this challenge. They suggest to launch a specific public programme for ‘assets-and-dreams-mapping’, that precede the start of Sustainable Neighbourhood Contracts, so that residents, local NGO’s and local authorities have the time to build the projects of the Neighbourhood Contract together, in a bottom-up way. This might prove to be a good idea, completely in accordance with the conclusions of CitizenDev. We think we need more field workers to launch these mappings, to talk to people, stimulate them to become actors and connect them with other actors that can help them pushing their ideas forward. Without a thematic agenda or specialisation.

The visit and round table of the 27th of February has been the showcase and final public moment of 3 years of experiment in three living labs of the CitizenDev project, www.citizendev.be. The CitizenDev partners are Community Landtrust Brussels, Eva Bxl, Sascha - ULB and Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques - Université Saint-Louis.

We are finalising a publication on our experiences and recommendations. To order the publication (freely available soon in French and Dutch, unfortunately not available in English), please contact BRAL.

Piet Van Meerbeek

Drawing: CC BY-NC-SA Dado Cornejo

At the occasion of the first International Day for Clean Air and Blue Skies - 7 September organized by the UN - Brussels air collectives and movements call upon the Brussels government to show ambition in order to tackle air pollution, the single greatest environmental health risk and one of the main avoidable causes of death and disease globally[1].

BRAL, Chercheurs d'Air, Clean Air Brussels, Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Filter Café Filtré, Greenpeace, Luchtster, Bruxsel'air and HEAL demand Brussels government to come up with:
 

  1. Ambitious laws protecting the health of Brussels’ citizens
  2. Better and democratic monitoring of Brussels air quality
  3. A system to reduce car traffic
  4. Redesigning public space for Brussels’ citizens

While this is only the first International Day for Clean Air and Blue Skies, there is little need to repeat how air pollution affects our lives. Every year, air pollution causes around 400.000 premature deaths and hundreds of billions of euros in health costs in the EU alone. WHO states that air pollution is a leading risk factor for major chronic diseases in adults, including heart and lung disease as well as cancer - and there is no safe level of pollution[2]. Our children are most vulnerable to air pollution. Consistent exposure in utero and childhood has lifelong consequences[3].

In Brussels, citizens and organisations have mobilised for better air quality by masking the statues, playing in front of the school gates and cycling from Antwerp to Brussels. The ambition: to make Brussels an inclusive, healthy city, with improving air quality as a first key step.

After the 2019 elections, Brussels air collectives met with the ministers of Environment and of Mobility and presented their demands to the Brussels Regional government.

  1. Brussels air collectives and movements plead for ambitious laws protecting the health of Brussels’ citizens. As health should be the first concern, Brussels air quality regulations need to take the WHO norms for all pollutants as an objective. Before the 2019 elections, all political parties agreed upon this, and it is stated in the governmental agreement. They insist that the reform of air quality regulations takes this ambition on.
  2. Brussels air collectives and movements demand to boost the existing air quality monitoring network, make it more democratic and transparent, as well as focus on at-risk areas. They are happy to see the see the implementation of citizen science projects to help raise public awareness. They hope that the new stations that have been announced by the regional government will be installed quickly to begin measuring not only where air pollution is highest, but also where the most disadvantaged communities live.
  3. The network asks to put in place a system that helps reducing car traffic significantly. The burning of fossil fuels for transport and car congestion are indeed key challenges to better air quality. We ask to introduce a congestion regulator on all motorised traffic related to Brussels Capital Region, like the one in Stockholm, where car traffic volumes dropped with 30% after its introduction.
  4. Brussels air collectives and movements demand a reallocation of public space towards active road users and residential functions. At the moment, about 70% of public space in Brussels is allocated to cars. In order to make Brussels liveable for its children, the network believes we need a coherent package along the lines of Good Move: redesigning streets and squares, promoting active modes, circulation plans to protect neighbourhoods, securing school environments, …

As in many European cities, COVID19 has changed how we move in and around Brussels. People started to cycle and walk more. As life resumes, lots of people stick to these habits which benefit air quality and the climate - and our health in many ways. As such, the current health crisis has given us a glimpse of what our cities could look like. Moreover, 68% of Europeans want to keep their cities car-free post COVID19[4].

The networks insists that the Brussels government sticks to the ambition it so clearly expressed at the start of its term.

“A lot has been done regarding all of our four demands. But a lot more still needs to be done to turn exploration and preparation into realisation. Now it is time to push forward and act in order to turn Brussels into a healthy and inclusive city offering the space and clean air the inhabitants deserve.” – Tim Cassiers, expert air quality and mobility, BRAL

Signed by:

BRAL, Chercheurs d'Air, Clean Air Brussels, Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Filter Café Filtré, Greenpeace, Luchtster, Bruxsel'air.

In collaboration with HEAL, for the international campaign #CleanAirForAll in the framework of the first International Day for Clean Air and Blue Skies of the UN

Press contact:

BRAL: Tim Cassiers, expert air quality and mobility, tim@bral.brussels,  0476 449 223

[1]  WHO, 2016 - https://bit.ly/3jcxZlL

[2] WHO, 2018 - https://bit.ly/34Ji62v

[3] HEAL, sd -  https://www.env-health.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Healthy-Schools_infographic.pdf 

[4] Politico, 2020 - https://www.politico.eu/article/life-after-covid-europeans-want-to-keep-their-cities-car-free/ 

The Brussels Council for the Environment (Bral vzw) wants to involve expats in Brussels more closely in the urban planning decision-making in Brussels. For years, BRAL as a critical Brussels NGO has been providing the necessary up-to-date information about public inquiries and consultation committees on its website in Dutch. From today, and not by chance at the beginning of the European Year of the Citizen, that tool is also available in French and English.

Via the tool, you will be able to find background information, practical details and a selection of large and small current applications for permits in Brussels.

In 2013, 20 years have passed since European citizenship originated.  The EU treaties state that each citizen in the Union is entitled to certain rights, including among others the right to free travel and establishment in other member states. In these treaties, the EU citizens obtained the right to vote and be a candidate in European and local elections. 

It is no public secret that the citizens in the EU are often not aware of these rights. “And the same is true for the ten thousands of ‘expats’ living and working in Brussels. However, their involvement in the urban planning development of our capital is required”, according to Hilde Geens from Bral. She has been following the urban planning dossiers in the European Quarter in Brussels for decades. “In the neighbourhoods around the European institutions, the local expertise and interest of these residents could bring a high added value for a variety of reasons. The neighbourhood committees, which are active in the Leopold Quarter, have been searching for some time for ways to involve their EU neighbours in their actions. This trilingual tool is of course no panacea, but it will lower the threshold to participating in the Brussels’ decision-making.”

In future, the Bral website will provide detailed information in three languages (Dutch/FR/ENG) about how and where you will be able to participate in a public inquiry, in which way to best notify your objections to the policy-makers, and how to draft a notice of opposition. A click-through map of Brussels will take you also to all public inquiries in the 19 municipalities of Brussels as well as to Bral’s critical selection of public inquiries. The translations have been carried out with the support of the King Baudouin Foundation and the National Lottery. 

By means of this trilingual tool, Bral hopes that it will also be able to reach other non-Dutch speaking residents of Brussels. According to Geens “The classical Dutch speaking or even bilingual residents’ committees no longer exist in Brussels”. “Groups of residents respond increasingly to reality and they openly play the international card. In practice, this often means also multi-lingual communication. We would like to help them out by making our expertise now available in three languages.”

In the spring of 2013, BRAL will also publish the trilingual publication ‘Battle strategies – actions by inhabitants of the European Quarter in Brussels – from 1986 until the present’.

FIND THE TOOL HERE: PUBLIC INQUIRIES IN BRUSSELS

Contact :  Hilde Geens | Bral vzw // www.bralvzw.be // staff member urban planning and Europe // Place du Samedi 13 – 1000 Brussels | T 02 217 56 33 |

Hilde Geens (°1953) is senior staff member urban planning at BRAL. She has been working since the early eighties on the ‘European dossier’ and was deeply involved in all initiatives and actions described in this publication. To this day she follows closely the overall Brussels planning processes, and in particular the developments in the European Quarter.

The publication "Community Organisation in the European Quarter in Brussels - Strategies for struggle - from 1986 until today" is available in 3 languages (English, French, Dutch) and  can be downloaded here.

BRAL a Belgian NGO that aims at making Brussels more sustainable, demonstrated today in front of the European Council’s Justus Lipsius building (rue de la Loi 175, 1040 Brussels), Wednesday 16 from 11.30 a.m. as EU Environment Ministers to discuss air quality norms for 2030. The objective is to stress the urgency of taking strong measures to clean up the air we breathe and to push for stricter air quality limits.

This is the first time since dieselgate that ministers in charge of combating air pollution will meet to discuss solutions. They will have the opportunity to reverse the technical and opaque decision taken on 28 October to ensure that the law is respected and that the health of Europeans is protected.

On 28 October EU governments have agreed on a major weakening of limits for nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from diesel cars, as well as postponed the implementation of new limits for all new cars until 2019. This allows cars to emit 210% more NOx than the EU air pollution standards (Euro 6) until 2020. And from 2021, all new cars will still be allowed to emit 50% more NOx than the Euro 6 limit of 80mg/km, permanently.

Member States will also decide new limits for dangerous air pollutants such as fine particles, NOx and ammonia for the next fifteen years. Documents show that Ministers are planning to significantly water down the limits proposed by the European Commission and they are proposing numerous flexibilities and accounting tricks to make air quality targets easier to hit [1]. They also suggest removing methane from the Directive, due to strong pressure from the intensive farming lobby.

According to a recent study by the European Environment Agency, 72, 000 premature deaths were caused by exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2012 in the EU. The inhalation of NO2  causes respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, even lung cancer, as well as prenatal and early childhood abnormalities. Diesel vehicles are the principal source of hazardous NO2 in urban areas throughout Europe.

Footnote: 

[1] Concil document: http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15172-2015-INIT/en/pdf

The procedure has barely been changed since 1979

The basic principles of the system have been set out in the Brussels Town Planning Code (CoBAT. / BWRO)[i]. Its modalities have been set down in detail in several implementing decrees. However, the legal provisions of the Regional Land Use Plan (PRAS / GBP) determine in which case the prior advice of the consultation committee is required.

The system was introduced in March 1976 by Paul Van den Boeynants, who was minister of Brussels Affairs at that time, by means of the approval of the draft Regional Land Use Plan[ii]. The Royal Decree provided for the first time that in the case of certain building applications a public inquiry was to be held, which needed to be announced in advance by means of red posters, and in addition, it provided for obligatory advice from a municipal consultation committee.

A major difference compared to the situation today was that only written reactions of the public at large were allowed at the time. Only the representatives of employers and workers could request to make representations to the consultation committee. Legal recognition was required to provide others with the same statute. At present, any resident or user of the town may react, in writing or orally during the public hearing of the consultation committee.

When the Regional Land Use Plan was finally approved three years later, the procedure was amended by means of a new Royal Decree[iii]. That Decree dating from November 1979 is still the foundation for the present system[iv].

The regional development plan of 1979 cornered by large projects

The origin of the system of public inquiries and consultation committees needs to be viewed in reference to the spirit of the time. At that time, urban planning was still a federal matter.  The 1962 act determined the hierarchy of the plans. It was decided that for the 19 municipalities or communes of Brussels only a Land Use development plan would be established. The Regional Land Use Plan for the Brussels-Capital Region (1979) was elaborated under very difficult circumstances and therefore did not include the ambitious objectives that really were highly needed at the time.[v]

The type of Regional Land Use Plan that had been set down in law was suitable for Flanders and Wallonia, but it was not adapted to the very mixed and quickly changing city. Vague zoning indications such as residential, industrial or rural areas for instance were not accurate enough to control office developments.  Brussels developed its own system: instead of establishing zones with one single land use, zones were demarcated with a main land use and a number of secondary land uses that were limited in floor area. After a public inquiry and on condition that the consultation committee gave a positive opinion, these secondary land uses could be allocated a larger floor area under specific conditions.

The draft-Land Use Plan of 1976 was the first plan for Brussels that had an official statute. However, other plans had been elaborated before that time, such as the preliminary study of the draft-Regional Land Use Plan by the Alpha Group [vi] and the plan prepared by the research consultancy Thekné [vii] for the City of Brussels. Although these documents had no legal status and they were never subjected to an organised debate, they did have an impact. The largest demolition projects for Brussels were even inspired by those plans: the continuation of the motorways into the centre, the extreme separation of land uses, the Manhattan Plan for the North Quarter with its demolition and expropriations, the extension of the Justice Palace, the demolition in the neighbourhood of the Marolles, etc

These developments provoked a lot of popular protest; the most important examples of this were the fight by the inhabitants of the North Quarter and the Marolles. Against this background, various local committees and regional organisations like ARAU (Atelier de Recherche et d’Action Urbaines), Bral (Urban Mouvement for Brussels) and IEB (Inter-Environnement Bruxelles) saw the light of day. There was also quite a lot of resistance against those major demolition projects among the young administrations in Brussels.

One of the consequences of the first oil crisis during the mid-seventies was the delay or even scrapping of many of those large projects. Therefore, there was time for reflection. Within that context, the real Regional Development Plan was drawn up, from a clearly defensive and a literally conservative point of view, for the concern of the policymakers to stop or prevent large real estate projects was greater than their willingness to design a true vision of the future for Brussels.

Twofold purpose and two parts

It is important to point out that the purpose of the system of public inquiries and consultation committees is twofold. Most of all, the system is intended to be a planning tool, because the individual evaluation of a building application can control the execution of the proposals submitted. The second ambition is to effect a wider involvement of the local residents in the decision-making. It cannot be denied that the public nature of the policy for granting building permission is enhanced by the organisation of a public inquiry and the associated consultation committee.

The procedure itself can also be divided into two parts. The first part, the public inquiry focuses in particular on the input from the residents. Anyone, resident, commuter or visitor to the area, each association or enterprise is entitled to study the file of the application or the project of the design, without having to demonstrate his direct or indirect interest. Anyone is entitled to express his remarks to the members of the consultation committee, either in writing or orally.

The consultation committee constitutes the second part of the procedure, and it organises the consultation between the various administrations, semi-governmental services and the town council. The committee where the real consultation takes place meets behind closed doors. The public part, which also refers to the ‘consultation committee’, is formally no more than a hearing. Therefore, in contradiction to what its name suggests, the consultation committee is not an ultimate participative device, but a tool for providing information and a hearing.

[i] Art 6 and art 9 of the Brussels’ Town Planning Code (CoBAT /BWRO) decree of 9/4/2004 amended several times

[ii] 22/03/1976 – Royal Decree for the foundation of a consultation committee for local town planning for each commune of the Brussels Capital Region and for the regulation of disclosure in reference to the activities and building work, which are subject to prior consultation according to the provisions of the draft regional plan and the regional plan of the agglomeration of Brussels.

[iii] 05/11/1979 – Royal Decree setting out for the Brussels Capital Region which special rules of public disclosure need to be followed in reference to some applications for building and land development and including the organisation for each commune of the Brussels Capital Region of a consultation committee for local town planning.

[iv] 23/11/1993 – Decree of the Brussels Government for the procedure of public inquiries and the consultation committee

[v] More about the past history and the difficult elaboration of the Brussels Capital Region Development Plan (1979) (special edition of Brallerlei)

[vi] Structure plan Alpha Group 1947, characterised by a clear separation of land uses.

[vii] On behalf of the City of Brussels1962, the Research Consultancy Thekné drew up a plan for the pentagon, with an inner ring road around the historical centre and residential high-rises along approach roads.