Urban Planning in the Brussels Capital Region

The arena of urban planning in Brussels Capital Region today gathers political and economical powers together with organisations and institutions for different sectorial, especially economic, local and scientific interests. Important actors from these fields are for instance politically elected members of the municipal councils and the Regional Government, public administrators, employers and members of trade unions, as well as representatives of the protection of the cultural heritage, the public transportation sector and environment, local action groups and last but not least the scientific community of Brussels. Many of those parties are represented in the Brussels Regional Development Committee that deals with urban planning matters. Amongst other institutions, they assure the follow-up of all legal planning instruments and are as such assumed to be a real meeting platform for actors in urban planning.

The 161 km², which we call the Brussels Capital Region today, is a new uniplex structure since 1989. Brussels Capital is one out of three Belgian regions that came into existence in the light of structural federalisation of Belgium, a process that started in the 1970s. BCR is lead by a minister-president and the government, as well as a council and administrative departments.
The compact administrative delimitation of Brussels Capital Region is somewhat surprising compared to its morphological development. Considering the location of vital functions such as the airport, the ring road of Brussels or economic entities, one would expect to see a much larger Region. The delimitation is a mainly political matter and tried to answer tensions between different language and cultural communities. The daily flow of commuters from the Flemish to the Brussels region is massive. This boarder is of little importance to economic players who can more easily shift locations from one to another Region.

Administrative delimitation: As said before, Brussels Capital Region is on an equal level as the Flemish and the Walloon Region; and can be further divided into 19 municipalities. The fusion of municipalities, which took place in the 1970s in the Flemish and Walloon parts, did not include Brussels. The municipal entities within Brussels Capital Region are therefore much smaller than in the rest of the country. There is no administrative delimitation of neighbourhoods.

Infrastructure and mobility: Brussels had an outer and inner ring road. Main axes for infrastructure were developed partly already in the 19th century under King Leopold II. Ideas to develop another city highway are only partly realised in the 1960s. Important infrastructure works were scheduled in 1958 in relation to the world fair and in 1964 with the plan of the MIVB. The latter is the official provider for public transport such as metro, trams and busses within Brussels Capital Region. Extensions to the network were recently finished for the Erasmus-sites to the West of Brussels. The last Regional Development Plan also focuses more on ‘soft users’ and provides the realisation of a biker’s network in Brussels.

Offices and businesses: the portfolio of real estate companies distinguish some three main locations for offices, namely the sites next to the South-HST-station, the European Quarter and the locations in the Northern Quarter, also called “Manhattan”. With an average of about 10 m2 of office space per inhabitant, Brussels outnumbers both Paris and London. A great share of offices is used for public administrations.

Residential areas: Brussels knew a continuous decline of the number of inhabitants over a long period of time. This tendency seemed to be stopped about 8 years ago, and turned into a slight increase. The composition of the population becomes more diverse in terms of ethnicities and distribution of social-economic status. In general terms can be said that the parts of Brussels which are located on a lower altitude often appear to be the areas were incomes are low as well. Especially the south-east of Brussels gathers wealthy residential areas.

Sites of regional importance: The Regional Development Plan indicates 14 areas as ‘lever zones’. The development of these areas is considered to be vital for the regional project.

Fractures and fringes: Important fractures in the development were caused with the vaulting of the Zenne and the construction of the Boulevard Anspach above in the 19th century, with the constructions planned by Leopold II: Roi Urbaniste (1865 - 1909), with the North-South Junction to connect the train stations, with the so-called ‘Manhattan’-plan for the North Quarter and the development of the European Quarter Brussels. These interventions are often referred to as being traumatic experience and add to the image of “Bruxellisation” which indicates urban planning interventions without consultation and at the cost of its inhabitants.

An integrative view on Urban Planning combines questions of housing, mobility, environment and economy as well. Ministers and state secretaries on the Regional Executive Level represent these domains, commissions represent this on the Regional Legislative level and a separate department for Spatial planning is concerned about it in the Regional Administration. There are two authorised officers within the administration in charge of issuing building permits, which is the exclusive responsibility of the Region. The Regional administration has great knowledge on urban planning issues, as many of the civil servants worked already for the so-called Brussels agglomeration, which is -to a limited extent- the predecessor of current structures.

On regular moments and on initiative of the administration for spatial planning, there are information sessions on specific and current issues. These are called ‘noon of planning’ and take place in an auditorium at the North Station, where the administration also has its offices: central, with low threshold to enter and easy to be reached. Speakers from research institutes as well as study and planning offices present and explain their findings in an open atmosphere to a wide public of officials, members of diverse organisations from civil society as well as individual inhabitants.
Municipalities solve questions of urban planning in specifically developed structures as for instance the setting of aldermen who are working on residential matters, issues of mobility and so on. Some municipalities work together with non-profit organisations for specific matters of urban planning. Some municipalities appointed aldermen specifically for questions of participation.
Although at first sight, the compact area of 161 km² might look a bit overloaded with official institutions for the Regional and Municipal level, a closer look shows important simplifications in practice. Illustrating for this phenomenon can be the example of the 75 members of the regional (parliamentary) council, of which about 50 members also execute functions on the municipal level. With this density of institutional structures, it is difficult to remain clear subsidiarity of levels.

The development of urban policies knows varying degrees of complexity and is often accompanied by conflicts in the urban arena. These are partly externalised in different forms of urban debates. The tools of urban governance, which include distinct modes of participation and actual co-production, can be described as follows:
Comprehensive Urban Planning: Different policy levels (for Brussels the regional and municipal level) develop land use and development plans. Examples for Brussels are the Regional Development Plan, the Regional Land Use Plan as well as Municipal Development Plans. Central tools of widening the arena are public hearings and gatherings of consultative committees on different political levels.
Project-oriented Urban Planning: In the following, the term ‘urban projects’ is used to indicate programmes, which give further elaboration of comprehensive plans. This can be for instance a development project for a neighbourhood, for a housing block, for public spaces, or for specific sites. Brussels knows a wide variety of urban projects. Examples for Brussels are the development of sites of regional importance and so-called ‘lever zones’, besides local interventions, such as the development of neighbourhood contracts and the former ‘neighbourhoods of initiatives’. The set of actors, degree of complexity and modes of participation and co-production are very diverse in character for different urban projects.
Local interventions can be commissioned from the Region and developed by local authorities together with other local players. They can also be commissioned by European Institutions (as e.g. in the frame of URBAN, OBJECTIVE II, INTERREG or a specific project like FOUR CITIES) or supported by other actors, such as the Flemish speaking communal authorities or the Foundation of King Bouduain. Brussels developed yet another specific instrument for local interventions which is called the ‘prior action programmes’, but this only had one single application for a site in the municipality of Molenbeek.

Specific tools which are used in application or further development of both comprehensive planning and project-oriented planning are for instance the issuing of construction permits, the allocation of subsidies or the demand to realise urban obligations.

Urban Debate, actions and research: Both policy makers and societal actors can take initiatives to gather different groups and stakeholders for debates, conferences, seminars, etc. The urban debate is also developed in press statements or for instance when cases come into public attention through public hearings. Examples from Brussels are seminars organised from Studio Open City, conferences and information sessions organised by regional policy levels, meetings organised by diverse umbrella organisations and pressure groups such as BRAL, Hacer or Citymin(e)d. Unlike the two other aspects of urban governance, different modes of urban debate are not subject for a separate in-depth case study. Different elements from the urban debate are used though as a short ‘symptomatic case’ to illustrate findings in the case studies.

The political level needs to be subdivided in the study of urban planning of Brussels Capital Region for at least two distinctive parts. As Urban planning is a matter of both Regional or supra-local and Municipal or Local actors, the scheme needs to be exemplified for different levels.

The regional level has competencies for permits, regional plans as well as questions of infrastructure and mobility. Brussels has transformed from capital of Belgium into an agglomeration and meanwhile into a fairly independent city region, known as ‘Brussels Capital Region’ with extended own responsibilities, also in affairs of urban planning. Depending on the dimension of the issue though, the federal level might need to intervene. In few specific cases, also federal actors can be involved in urban issues. This is applicable for the development of the site of regional importance of the European Quarter, where federal institutions already commissioned different studies about the future of this site. The federal level is the official partner for European agreements, and acts as party to the treaties unless these explicitly focus on regions (with permission of the national level). The national government was the main political partner in questions of urban development in the European Quarter until the federalisation in 1988.
This is also applicable for neighbourhood contracts, where the federal institutions recently financially support part of the project.

The municipal level (at least three municipalities are involved in questions about the European Quarter) then focuses on municipal development plans and particular land use plans. Some matters of security are also solved on this level, as the police corps is under authority of the different mayors. It is remarkable that the European level does not appear as a purely political level for the urban development of the European Quarter. The European Institutions act in the first place as clients, each on behalf of their specific needs.

Second, the societal level can also be further subdivided. For the analysis of actors in the urban arena of Brussels Capital Region, we can distinguish different pressure groups, economic groups, users of the site, designers or architects and research institutions. The positioning of mass media in this file is subject to further investigations.
Pressure groups can be further divided into regionally acting and locally acting groups. Umbrella-organisation are for instance BRAL, IEB or ARAU. Specific neighbourhood associations are for instance AQL, GAQ and the Association Riverains Loi. The economic groups contain both project developers, constructors, financiers, real estate agents and owners. Many of these organisations have also links with French capital. The main users in the European Quarter are, as said earlier, the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Research organisations can be further subdivided for private and public offices as well as universities and colleges.

Another and perhaps more precise mode of classifying actors in the arena of urban planning is to distinguish not only political from societal actors, but to specify the latter for actors within civil society and actors on the market or economical players.

The relations between different actors show great variety. There have been different structural or at least formal attempts to co-ordinate between actors. Not surprisingly, there have been also informal contacts and what Baeten also sometimes calls ‘unholy coalitions’ between different actors, such as growth coalitions between politicians, developers and investors (Baeten, 2001, p. 7). According to E. Swyngedouw, there is an obvious need to develop growth coalitions, but he stresses the variety and width of these coalitions. Surprisingly enough, some individuals seem to have great power on their own to influence the file ‘European Quarter’.

Different actors might find themselves – whether intended or not- within the same discourse or working on the same area in the quarter. This often not intended or unnoticed shared interest leads to the formation of ‘clusters’ of actors from the discourse, the action or the field of action. Actors might even work on the same field and/ or develop similar discourses, but work in parallel circuits without further co-ordination. With the complexity in the composition as well as institutional changes, it is often difficult to see which actors could actually co-operate.