National Spatial Strategy in the Netherlands

“The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries of the European continent. It is situated in the delta of the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt.” [1] As in the downstream of these rivers, for years the Netherlands has been threatened by flooding risks caused by transnational problem. As well as the Netherlands is a relatively small country, which highly dependent on international trading business. Those make Dutch people international-minded in general. The National Spatial Strategy has a broad view from international perspective within European and global context, proposing spatial planning responses to economic, societal and environmental challenges.

•  The basis for developing spatial planning

“The National Spatial Strategy has shifted the emphasis in the policy of DG[2] Spatial Policy from “imposing restrictions” to promoting development. The economy now plays a greater role and the Government wants to create more space for development. This gives greater responsibility for action to other actors: the provincial and municipal councils, the institutions of civil society, and not least to individual citizens.[3] ” The Government recognizes that regional, local authorities have their own knowledge for solving their needs. In the meanwhile, the Government offers planning guidance and principles to protect essential values such as landscape, nature, cultural heritage and water management.

• Planning for economic development

One of the goals in the strategy is to strengthen economic competitiveness of the Netherlands internationally. Therefore there are some areas and space have been designated their functions for development. Urban renewal, reconstruction in previous brown field will be on the higher priority for needs of new homes or workplaces and amenities. Also, the Government encourages cooperation between cities and the formation of city networks. Take the regional thinking as a whole instead of just one single municipality or city (Fig1).

Figure1: map for economic development strategy

Source: Nota Ruimte: Ruimte voor ontwikkeling http://www2.minvrom.nl/notaruimte/index.htm

• Planning for water and nature

As climate change being the biggest threat for the Netherlands, the sector of water and nature in which they have put many attentions. To avoid flooding, Dutch approach is to make more space for water, by engineering as well as non-engineering measures. To strengthen dykes where necessary and also to restructure land uses and it’s function for retention (Fig2).

Figure2: Diagram of making room for river

Sea-level rise leads intrusion of salinity along coastline and making soil not suitable for planting. The relocation of horticulture industry is also one of the core strategies for Dutch spatial planning.

National Ecological Network (NEN) is the main strategy for nature repair and reservation. Dutch central government has designated twelve ecological corridors to repair fragmented sections of the NEN. Developments are not allowed in these protected areas. If there is a need for public and unavoidable reasons, the compensation measures have to be taken, for example to create another place relatively or pay for that by agreement. The intention of natural protection is to ensure agricultural environment as water and ecological system playing important role in the production process.

•  Coordination of Sector Policies

The National Spatial Strategy will be conceived as successful only the sector policies will be integrated with each other. Spatially-relevant policies including policies for agriculture, transport, economic affairs and so on. These policies in a way support the spatial development if they are based on the same philosophy of governance model. They also may have conflicts in their policy objectives with each other and thus need to be solve in a mechanism providing by spatial planning.

Thinking of spatial planning in Taiwan

Just like the case in the Netherlands, the first concern of national spatial planning is the economic competitiveness of a city or region. As the trend of globalization, the size of competitive unit is becoming more and more important which makes the thinking of metropol-region popular. The ideas of national spatial planning strategies of Taiwan are influenced.

National Spatial Planning Strategy of Taiwan has just been published this year by CEPD. The intentions are to reshape three metropolitan regions which are Northern-Taiwan, Central-Taiwan and Southern-Taiwan. However, it seems nothing to do with the five-cities within the regions. For example, the idea of spatial development should be integrated in northern Taiwan, but in reality Taipei city and county are belong to two different municipalities and they are hardly to cooperation and communication. That makes the plan of spatial planning is always a “Plan”. The same situation can be seen in central and southern Taiwan as well. In sum there’s a “gap” between the plan of spatial planning and the practice of governance.

Besides, we think the coordination of spatial planning and sectoral polities is crucial to transform a spatial plan into a spatial development. National significant infrastructures, water, ecological and agriculture management measures which has spatial implications and impacts are should be harmonized with each other. It’s also a key to the implementation of spatial planning ideas in Taiwan.

Reference：

1. NATIONAL SPATIAL STRATEGY - SUMMARY -Creating space for development, VROM, the Netherlands
2. Climate Changes Spatial Planning Programme website: http://climatechangesspatialplanning.climateresearchnetherlands.nl/nl/25222734-Home.html
3. Council for economic planning and development website: http://www.cepd.gov.tw/

Source:
[1] http://www.vrom.nl/pagina.html?id=37412  
[2] DG : Directorate-General of Spatial Policy
[3] http://www.vrom.nl/pagina.html?id=36864