Land grabbing is common around farmland, but also within built-up areas. Enforcement is also often lacking there, lawyers say to NU.nl. The painful consequence is that cases become time-barred – after which the claimant becomes the rightful owner.
The Netherlands is small and densely populated. With the housing shortage, the sustainability of agriculture and water management, our country faces major challenges in the field of spatial planning. The abolition of the Ministry of Spatial Planning (in 2010) has therefore not done any good to the national management of these themes, say critics.
But elsewhere too, the government has lost control over the use of space: the maintenance of land ownership. This is especially the case with local authorities: municipalities, provinces and water boards.
“There are decades of neglect,” says lawyer Liesbeth van Leijen, who specializes in illegal land use. “Given the busyness in our country, it is very important to do something about it. Public space is under threat from all sides.”
Stretch the boundary of the lawn a little at a time
How much unlawfully appropriated government land is involved? Due to the lack of enforcement, there are no total figures. But even within built-up areas, land grabbing is a widespread phenomenon. This is the conclusion of research by Professor of Private Law and Sustainability Björn Hoops of the University of Groningen.
In his reports you can read that it often proceeds as a gradual process. It starts with placing a bench or extending a piece of lawn. A fence may not follow until years later.
The fact that the ground has been taken is often no longer clearly visible. And then a second problem arises, Hoops says to NU.nl: statute of limitations. If the original owner does not intervene for twenty years, it may already be too late to reclaim the land.
24,000 hectares within the built-up area
According to the latest estimate by the Groningen research group, one in twenty households has illegally appropriated municipal land. In built-up areas, this is an average of 20 to 40 square meters, says Hoops. “And occasionally you see stolen pieces of up to 400 square meters.”
This would mean that municipalities in the Netherlands would lose more than 24,000 hectares of land within built-up areas. That is an average of 71 hectares per municipality.
This is therefore separate from land grabbing between neighbours, says Van Leijen – because that also happens regularly. “It is my estimate that in just under half of the cases, court decisions concern disputes between neighbors, which means that no government is involved.”
Outside built-up areas, the figures become cloudy
That overall picture appears to be more difficult to make outside built-up areas. In our article about land grabbing from fields and grasslands, it was estimated that (on the sandy soils) it would be “tens of hectares per municipality”.
That article generated a lot of reactions, including from people who questioned this scale. But judging by the situation in Berkelland, it seems rather an underestimate. The Achterhoek municipality is one of the few that has actively started reclaiming confiscated roadsides. The counter is now between 100 and 150 hectares, a spokesman said.
Land has been wrongly appropriated at 15 to 25 percent of the roadsides. During the inventory of the municipality, it also emerged that cultural-historical landscape elements had been destroyed in order to expand agricultural plots. For example, think about it illegal felling and excavation of ancient wooded banks.
Fertilizer fraud will be taken to court, roadside pick-up will not
Also confusing is the difference between physical and accounting land grabs. The latter are attempts to get rid of more manure through a larger land claim. The Public Prosecution Service has hundreds of manure fraud cases pending and previously opposed this RTL News “mopping with the tap open”.
‘Bermpjepik’ rarely ends up in court. Despite the large number of cases, Berkelland manages to straighten out land ownership on the basis of a good conversation.
Van Leijen wonders whether the government is not too reticent about the recovery. Governments need land for all kinds of things, she sums up: the construction of heat network pipes, charging stations, green zones against heat stress, dyke reinforcements and parking facilities.
“What I never understand is that the government is having a conversation at one kitchen table to buy land at a fair market price, while a kilometer away government land is being used illegally and for free – often for a long time.”
“If the user is called to account for this, the resistance can be great. The use must above all remain that way. And people are not prepared to pay a price in line with the market, let alone a fee for years of free use. Many directors have experienced this type of cases no straight back.”
Land grab also in the (ditch-rich) west of the country
In our previous article, we stated that land grabbing is probably more common on the eastern sandy soils than in the western part of the country. This is because in the west there are more ditches in the country, which often act as a hard border between plots.
That picture may also be incomplete. This is evident, for example, from research by the Hollandse Delta water board, which covers an area from Dordrecht to Goeree-Overflakkee. Banks are easy prey there. “In our working area there may be 3400 cases of illegal use of water board land,” says Selene Hoogeveen of the South Holland water board.
In addition to law enforcement, the water board sees a second reason to intervene: equal treatment of citizens. “We regularly receive requests from residents to buy or rent a piece of land or water. When processing such a request, we sometimes discover that this piece of land had already been used by another resident, without obtaining permission. questions. This creates inequality,” says Hoogeveen.
What now? Van Leijen organizes in June a congress on tackling illegal land use. Hoops calls for abolition of the statute of limitations. And a Berkelland spokesperson tips them off enforcement documentfor other municipalities that also want to venture into this.
