Environmental Zoning: The Dutch Struggle Towards Integration

A major problem confronting effective urban development is posed by conflicts which often emerge between environmental policy and land use planning. Environmental control seeks to reduce pollution and limit its intrusion on other activities, often separating pollution sources from environmentally sensitive areas. Land use planning commonly seeks to combine multiple uses in the same area to minimize travel distances, often favouring compact urban development. When those two sets of objectives clash, working out a balance between them is important although difficult This paper is about the Dutch experience with mapping several kinds of pollution spillover from manufacturing activity, and where these effects cause hindrance or are detrimental to health, acquiring housing and moving residents if it is not possible to mitigate these effects at source. The experience is of international importance, because it is based on an integration between environmental policy and spatial planning. Referred to as integral environmental zoning (IEZ), this programme is announced by the internationally well-known Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan. The IEZ programme is being tested in several pilot projects. The aim is to fill in Chapter 6 of the Dutch Environmental Management Act, called ‘Environmental Zoning, based on the results of the IEZ programme. Up to the present the results are shocking!