Premium
Urban Land‐Use and Building Control in The Netherlands: Flexible Decisions in a Rigid System
Author(s) -
NIEMEIJER BERT
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1989.tb00023.x
Subject(s) - flexibility (engineering) , normative , enforcement , law and economics , process (computing) , control (management) , certainty , politics , legal certainty , accountability , rule of law , business , law , political science , computer science , economics , management , operating system , philosophy , epistemology
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.