Homes outside the zone are located in zones where living is in principle not permitted. This usually concerns agricultural land, forests, parks or nature reserves. Inquiries with the Environment Department of the Flemish government reveal that even there they do not know how many houses are involved, because there are so many. Estimates vary widely, from 150,000 to as many as 800,000 homes. In the latter case, one in four homes in Flanders would be outside the zone.
At the same time, that doesn’t mean much. Homes outside the zone are rarely also illegal, because they are usually built with a building permit. As a rule, they only became part of the zone long after the construction works, after Flanders had introduced the regional plans at the end of the 1970s. Homes outside the zone may also be renovated without any problems under certain conditions, or rebuilt after, for example, a fire, or even expanded.
It becomes much more difficult when such a non-zone home is also located in a spatially vulnerable area, such as in the VEN area. Then much less is possible, in principle only necessary renovation work. Unless a Spatial Implementation Plan specially introduced for this purpose again offers more options. That is exactly what the Brakel municipal council tried in recent years.(pvm)
