Certain flexibilities in land-use plans Towards a method for assessing flexibility

Duncan Van den Hoek, Tejo Spit and Thomas Hartmann

Land Use Policy, 2020, vol. 94, issue C

Abstract: The trade-off between flexibility and legal certainty is inherent in every planning system. This trade-off is especially apparent within a land-use plan. Flexibility and legal certainty are often seen as communicating vessels: the demise of one leads to an increase in the other. Within land-use plans, however, the connection between the two is more subtle. For a land-use plan, the choice between being specific or open, and rigid or adaptable, determine the amount of flexibility. With these choices a land-use plan can increase its flexibility without decreasing legal certainty. Within reason the legal certainty can even benefit from more flexibility. However, current academic literature lacks a structured way to analyse flexibility contained within a land-use plan. Such a method is necessary for analysing and comparing different land-use plans. This paper will provide such a method and analyse thirteen different land-use plans in the Netherlands on their flexibility. It will show that a structured method can prove to be useful for analysing and comparing different land-use plans. The research provides insight into the complex balance between flexibility and legal certainty and presents an assessment tool which can be used for further academic research.

Keywords: Land-use plans; Flexibility; Legal certainty; Assessing flexibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:94:y:2020:i:c:s026483771930239x

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104497

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