The Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) is a framework law that includes everything that is part of the “physical environment” (“leefomgeving”), and has come into force on January 1, 2024. The overall objective of this Act in relation to society (Article 1.3) is “ensuring sustainable development, the habitability of the land and to protecting and enhancing this environment”, interrelated with the objective to achieve and maintain a safe and healthy physical environment and good environmental quality, because of “the intrinsic value of the natural world”. Moreover, the Act includes the aim of countering climate change, protecting the environment and nature, and safeguarding health. Overall, the purpose of the Environment and Planning Act is to create a more coherent regulatory landscape for the physical environment by modernising, harmonising and combining laws into one single Act, which makes for five major improvements:
- More transparent environment and planning law
- A more coherent and balanced approach to the physical environment
- Room for customisation on the local level
- Better and faster decision-making
- Increased participation and incentive to increase the alignment of interests of different stakeholders, e.g. municipalities, developers and other actors influencing the physical environment through their activities
The Environment and planning act states that the physical environment shall in any event include:
- buildings, infrastructure, water systems, water, soil, air, landscapes, the natural environment, cultural heritage, and world heritage
Overall, it (partially) repeals 26 laws and combines them into one single Act, including the Crisis & Recovery Act, the Environmental Management Act, and parts of the Water Act. The Act consists of 6 core instruments that allow governments to write and implement policies, regulate activities, and implement projects, aimed at using and protecting the physical environment.
Among these is the Environment Vision, a strategic plan outlining the future aim for the development of the physical environment, which needs to be created by all government levels (national, provincial, and municipal level). An additional instrument are the decentralised rules, in which all decentralised governments have 1 regulation for the physical environment in their territory, e.g. frameworks for assessing permits or rules for activities of citizens and companies. The Act also creates a digital environment (“Omgevingsloket”) connecting all governments, and functions as a one-stop-shop for all applications to permits, zoning plan rules, and details on the quality of the physical environment. Moreover, the Act reduces the previous 60 Orders in Council to 4 Orders in Council, and narrows down 75 ministerial regulations to one ‘Environment Regulation’. It includes the following four Orders in Council. As part of the legislative package in introduces the following four decrees:
- The Environment Decree of the Netherlands (Omgevingsbesluit)
- The Environmental Quality Decree of the Netherlands (Besluit kwaliteit leefomgeving, Bkl)
- The Environmental Activities Decree of the Netherlands (Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving, Bal)
- The Environment Buildings Decree of the Netherlands (Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving, Bbl)
Important themes within the Environment and Planning Act: Nitrogen
The government is combining nitrogen measures with other measures to improve the quality of water, soil, and nature, and fulfil the Dutch climate obligations. Measures are therefore introduced for 1) industry, 2) agriculture, 3) transport and the 4) construction sector in order to reduce nitrogen deposition and improve the quality of Natura 2000 areas. The Nitrogen Reduction and Nature Improvement Act previously regulated the structural nitrogen approach. With the Environment and Planning Act this law is repealed, and the following components become part of the system of the Environment and Planning Act:
- Result-demanding environmental values for nitrogen deposition on nitrogen-sensitive Natura 2000 areas (Article 2.15a on ambient values for nitrogen)
- 2025: 40% of the nitrogen sensitive Natura-2000 areas must be below the critical deposition value (<255 mole per hectare) in 2025
- 2030: 50% of the nitrogen sensitive Natura-2000 areas must be below the critical deposition value in 2030
- 2035: 74% of the nitrogen sensitive Natura-2000 areas must be below the critical deposition value in 2035
- Obligatory national nitrogen reduction and nature improvement programme
- Monitoring and adjustment system
