Re-using vacant farm buildings for commercial purposes: Two cases from the Netherlands

Maarten Cornelis Johannes Koreman and Willem Korthals Altes

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 132, issue C

Abstract: Across the European Union, farm modernisation results in vacant farm buildings in agricultural areas. This is an issue at the crossroads of rural development and spatial planning. The debate often revolves around the options of either demolishing these buildings or re-using them for residential purposes. There is less emphasis, however, on re-using vacant farm buildings to create new employment opportunities in rural areas. This article analyses two cases in the Netherlands to explore the commercial re-use of vacant farm buildings in relation to rural development. The analysis specifically focuses on governance issues, the contribution of different types of commercial re-use to rural communities, and how re-use helps in retaining or attracting young people. The findings suggest that commercial re-use of vacant farm buildings can attract new entrepreneurs, jobs, and liveliness to rural areas. This is likelier if local government efforts and local entrepreneurship align. The cases also show limitations of commercial re-use in relation to the potential for wider uptake and the risk of enhancing rural gentrification. This raises the question of whether the current planning systems can deal with the upcoming complex processes of rural transformation.

Keywords: Property re-use; Farm buildings; Spatial planning; Youth; Rural development; The Netherlands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723002892
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:132:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723002892

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106823

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().