Green group De Koepel opposes three bedroom homes Prinsenbeek | Breda

According to the opponents, the building titles and space-for-space certificates for the three building plots are based on quicksand, the opponents’ lawyer argued during a trial in The Hague. Because according to the space-for-space rules of the province of Noord-Brabant, the construction of three houses in the outskirts of Breda is in principle only possible if there is a “significant improvement in the quality of the landscape”.

In order to achieve this quality improvement, at least a thousand square meters of old barns or other agricultural buildings must be demolished elsewhere in the region, or even the province. To simplify things a bit, the province has in the past created so-called room-for-room certificates. One certificate represents every 1,000 m2 of barns demolished.

Until 2017, the province kept meticulous records of the stables, size and location of the wrecking hammer. Since 2017, Noord-Brabant has relied on a government system which gives a general overview of the demolished stables. According to opponents of the three plots of land in Prinsenbeek, there is no hard evidence that stables or other superfluous agricultural buildings were actually demolished there.

According to Rogier Hörchner, lawyer for the opponents, the piece-by-piece arrangement worked much better until 2017 and this led to demonstrable improvements in nature and the landscape in Brabant. “Now there is no connection at all, and more and more housing projects are being built in places where nothing has ever been, or in places that really affect the open landscape and nature.”

“The three dwellings planned on the Kettingdreef and the Brielsedreef will be on open agricultural land belonging to a livestock and horticulture company. Room-by-room control is never intended for this,” says spokesperson Hörchner.

The Council of State posed a large number of critical questions, in particular to the spokesperson of the province. He struggled to explain why building three houses there would significantly improve the landscape.

Whether the Council of State will compel the province to enforce the piece-by-piece regulations much more stringently will become clear within weeks of the decision.