Willem K. Korthals Altes

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Management in the Built Environment

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...

Acquiring access to land is an important issue for new entrants into farming. Traditionally, the succession of farms is within the family; market transactions are geared towards the enlargement of running farms. Policies and institutions have been built to facilitate this process. Current challenges of climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversit...

The concentration of farmland has potentially a negative impact on planning for local rural development as it impedes access to land for other rural initiatives. Land policies in the European Union aiming to reserve lands for local communities are constrained by principles of the EU single market, such as the free movement of capital and the freedo...

Developments toward Open Government Data (OGD) also affect the data from National Continuously Operating Reference Station (NCORS), an infrastructure supporting standard and precise positioning in spatial activities. The application of OD policies on NCORS data (OD-NCORS) varies per country. This article explores the approaches and impact of OD-NCO...

Developments toward Open Government Data (OGD) also affect the data from National Continuously Operating Reference Station (NCORS), an infrastructure supporting standard and precise positioning in spatial activities. The application of OD policies on NCORS data (OD-NCORS) varies per country. This article explores the approaches and impact of OD-NCO...

It is a frequently recurring claim: the housing shortage can be solved by designating more construction sites. In the Netherlands context there are sufficient locations. Where it stalls is the development of those areas. So housing construction can be promoted by aiming the scarce administrative capacity of municipalities at the locations that are...

Urban energy consumption is expected to continuously increase alongside rapid urbanization. The building sector represents a key area for curbing the consumption trend and reducing energy-related emissions by adopting energy efficiency strategies. Building age acts as a proxy for building insulation properties and is an important parameter for ener...

This report has been compiled as part of the EU Horizon 2002 financed project RURALIZATION (Grant Agreement NO 817642) on ‘The opening or rural areas to renew rural generations, jobs and farms’ and have been prepared by members of the protect team. Access to land is one of the topics, which is addressed by considering, (1) legal and policy arrangem...

RURALIZATION deliverable D6.3 ‘Technical Report on Quantitative Analysis of Land Holdings and Land Market Trends, short hand out with main results’ Part A provides an overview of relevant developments in land holdings and of land market trends that are relevant for access to land for new generations in rural areas. This fits to the broader aims of...

The 2016 Pact of Amsterdam launched the Urban Agenda for the European Union. Within its framework, partnerships of urban authorities, Member States and other stakeholders have developed action plans to achieve better funding, better knowledge and better regulation for the priority theme of their partnership. This study provides an overview and crit...

Complementary Act on Land Ownership: Continuity despite the thinking behind the Environment and Planning Act The Environment and Planning Act is developed as a sequel to the Crisis and Recovery Act. In the context of the Global Financial Crisis, market players hardly realised buildings. In the rare case that a market player was willing to invest,...

Nee, de woningnood is niet op te lossen door meer locaties te bestemmen voor woningbouw, concludeert TU Delft-onderzoeker Willem Korthals Altes. Sterker nog: verruimen van woningbouwmogelijkheden kan averechts werken op woningbouwproductie. Zijn advies: segmenteer het woningprogramma en zet een prijs op bouwopties.

There has been a significant and sustained increase in the use of repayable financial instruments (FIs) in Cohesion policy over the 2007-13 and 2014-20 programme periods. Repayable instruments are relatively new tools in the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), particularly under the ESF, EAFRD and the Cohesion Fund. What does the incre...

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are becoming a popular educational tool in different disciplines. Urban planning education is no exception and new MOOCs are being released every year. Despite this, it is still not clear how this new learning experience is being developed, delivered, and impacting upon planning education. This article sheds light...

Under the Rhenish model of capitalism the interests of other stakeholders than shareholders are essential to the interests of the firm. However, Rhenish institutions in Germany have been changing. In the housing sector, many organizations that promoted the provision of affordable housing are currently managed by private equity firms promoting share...

Planning is assessed not only based on its ability to improve the living environment through place making, but also based on its role in facilitating investments in the built environment. This paper approaches the combination of these functions as planning for multiple land use. Contracts, rather than plans, are used to bridge these functions. This...

The development of existing urban areas is needed to prevent urban sprawl. Several factors, including land assembly holdouts and the option value of land, contribute to landowners’ lack of initiative to develop designated sites. Urban governance measures, however, may provide the necessary solutions. By implementing policies that promote inner-city...

Both harmony and conflict may occur between local and more distant communities regarding artefacts of cultural heritage. Incoming tourism, which is attracted by cultural heritage, may provide jobs and other means of income to local residents. However, incoming tourists may also trigger or accelerate a process of gentrification in which local reside...

Purpose This paper aims to compare and review alternative ways to adjust public ground leases. Design/methodology/approach Based on principles derived from a review of scientific literature, alternatives for the extension of leases are discussed based on the case of Amsterdam. Findings Many alternatives lead public ground-lease systems to produce...

Landscape protection in metropolitan areas is an ongoing activity that lies outside the remit of political office-holders. As political agendas change, the importance of landscape protection on strategic planning agendas may also change. This paper raises the question whether this strategic level of landscape protection ought to rest on rules or id...

Dit onderzoek geeft inzage in de (potentiële) maatschappelijke kosten en baten van open data. Achtergrond vormt de ambitie die de Minister van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijkrelaties in de Nationale Open Data Agenda (NODA) heeft geformuleerd om zoveel mogelijk overheidsgegevens die zich daarvoor lenen, als open data beschikbaar te stellen. Daarbij...

Land-use plans serve a dual function. On the one hand, they are programmes for future development, plans for action. On the other hand, they have a regulative function in relation to construction and land use. This paper investigates how the interplay between these functions is playing a role in the current debate about the new integrated Environme...

Tenants are in a vulnerable position in relation to investments by landlords in their homes. Both, overinvestment, resulting in gentrification, and underinvestment, resulting in deterioration, are processes that have been well analysed in studies on gentrification and rent control. Much less is known about institutions that seek to ensure a balance...

Urban areas have spatial discontinuities, such as disconnected neighbourhoods, brownfield areas and leftover places. They can be captured by the metaphor of urban porosity. This paper aims to highlight the potential social consequences of urban porosity by creating a ‘porosity index’. The authors argue that these areas can provide capacity for flex...

Planning new housing areas involves balancing many interests and local authorities must make decisions in a way that is accountable. Formal accountability is organised differently in plan-led and development-led planning systems. In planled systems, accountability relates to the question of whether development takes place in accordance with the pla...

Studies on retail planning in European Union (EU) Member States tend to be nationally oriented and, at best, compare national retail planning systems. They also appear to be based on an implicit assumption that retail planning should not be designed to fit the Single European Market (SEM). This paper analyses a series of judgments by the European C...

On the basis of a ruling by the European Court of Justice, the Constitutional Court of Belgium nullified parts of Flemish housing policy in November 2013 because they did not conform to the rules of the single European market. Flemish policies which sought to prevent gentrification were at odds with the fundamental freedoms of the single European m...

Local authorities have moved many entrepreneurial activities outside the direct control of the municipal council. This includes land development activities relating to planning policies which involve both private development and public infrastructure. Many studies have shown that positioning activities outside the control of elected bodies undermin...

Public policy instruments such as compulsory purchase frame the relationships between authorities and those affected. In Dutch planning local authorities may not issue compulsory purchase orders if landowners are able to realise the plan themselves. This self-realisation principle has been strongly criticised. However, the arguments are not based o...

Housing is not one of the European Union (EU’s) formal competences, but European integration does affect member states’ housing policies to a significant extent. Without the establishment of EU-level competence, housing cannot become a field of positive integration and the Europeanisation of housing policies will continue to occur through negative...

Policy instruments are the building blocks of land use policies. Instrumentation of policies relates to values. Compulsory purchase is a direct government instrument that may be an effective way to implement policies of biodiversity conservation and the allocation of land for recreational use. It is, however, in many contexts, politically controver...

Purpose – This paper aims to review the rescaling of integrated planning policies for the built environment by the transposition of European directives on air quality in The Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study examining European and Dutch policies, legislation, case law and reports by various Dutch Courts of Auditors an...

Europeanization involves the diffusion of European institutions. In Valencia, the system of land development prompted many foreign property owners to appeal to European institutions. The Petitions Committee of the European Parliament took up their case and requested intervention by the European Commission. The European public procurement proceeding...

Inclusionary housing (IH) is a means of using the planning system to create social housing and foster social inclusion by capturing market sector income. The literature is increasingly reporting on how different forms of IH work and on the impact of IH programmes on housing production for low-income groups. However, the issue has rarely been examin...

Tasan-Kok T., Groetelaers D. A., Haffner M. E. A., van der Heijden H. M. H. and Korthals Altes W. K. Providing cheap land for social housing: breaching the state aid regulations of the single European Market?, Regional Studies. European Union member states are not permitted to provide aid that will distort competition by favouring certain undertaki...

Greenhouses are a typical example of peri-urban land-use, a phenomenon that many planning systems find difficult to address as it mixes agricultural identity with urban appearance. Despite its urban appearance, greenhouse development often manages to evade urban containment policies. But a ban on greenhouse development might well result in under-ut...

Rescaling state responsibilities and capacities not only triggers an uneven distribution of regulatory and fiscal powers across scales but also creates complex governance relationships that result in distortions in local processes of urban development. Within this framework, this article analyses how Single European Market regulations affect urban...

Complex urban projects developed within a neoliberal context may entail inclusionary goals. In order to recognize diversity and as a response to many uncertainties, learning during their realization becomes an important issue. Consequently, legal agreements for complex urban projects that cater to learning are more suitable than agreements in which...

The concept of a planning doctrine can be used to analyse spatial planning systems, making reference to the ways in which their performance is influenced by patterns of thought. In the Netherlands the performance of the planning system has been attributed to a strong national consensus on a set of interrelated and enduring notions on spatial config...

This chapter aims to display dysfunctional consequences of transnational neoliberalisation in cities where supranational organisations that aim to control and regulate the global trade create interventions in the local policy making. While urban development projects have been widespread throughout Europe since the 1990s, the local governments are c...

Urban regeneration involves cooperation between public and private parties. Parties conclude urban development agreements (DAs) that contain the specific conditions under which they are willing to cooperate for the realisation of an urban development project. Based on a relational approach to contracting which holds that all contracts are embedded...

In addition to public law and legislation, local authorities may use contracts to promote the sustainable development of urban projects. Contracts provide a formal way of defining a more dynamic, flexible and collaborative process of working than is possible with public law procedures. This paper discusses two major urban redevelopment projects - t...

In rapidly developing nations, industrialization and urbanization result in an urban–rural development gap whereby the standard of living in rural areas lags behind urban areas. This may cause further urbanization and a relative decline in rural areas. Governments have used many strategies to challenge this trend. Using the Republic of Korea as a c...

The research question of this study is the following. Which factors contribute to the obstacles to spatial development due to European regulations and is the perception that these obstacles are mentioned justified? Is it due to the contradictions in and between the EU rules itself, the accumulation of EU regulations, choices made in national implem...

Study for the Court of Audit of the City of Enschede on the urban extension 't Vaneker. The study reports on decision making, municipal investments and market perspective.

Past research has revealed that governments are often tempted to underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits of infrastructure projects. However, an analysis of local-government estimates and accounts reveals that servicing land by local authorities in the Netherlands is an exception to this general phenomenon. The profits made by local a...

The land readjustment (LR) method has been compared to traditional urban renewal models’ substantial potential in fulfilling specific functions, e.g., land assembly, self-finance, the protection of social capital, and results in a certain time. However, there is limited information on the use of LR in urban renewal areas. For example, it is not kno...

Scholars increasingly stress the importance of relations rather than locations in planning. Consequently, planning research might not only focus on land use and land-use regulations, but also on the way relations between urban and regional actors are regulated. This paper reflects critically on the European directive on public contracts, which regu...

Within the Single European Market, rules govern the procurement of public works contracts and concessions. While recent judgments by the European Court of Justice indicate that these rules could have a considerable impact on future land development planning, there has not yet been widespread Europeanization of local land development practice. In Ge...

Accommodating urban growth in the fast growing city of Istanbul encounters several problems. This paper discusses the development of greenfield sites in Istanbul by examining the institutional structure of the land development process of some recent large-scale housing projects using a framework of institutional analysis. The result reveals that th...

It is important to find a tool to be found that is capable of fulfilling specific functions (such as land assembly, self-finance, the protection of social capital, with results obtainable within a certain time) in approaches related to the renewal of urban built-up areas. This paper discusses whether land readjustment (LR) can be such a tool by ana...

About 40% of jobs and 36% of activities in cities take place in residential areas. Three quarters of the new entrepreneurs start their business activities from home. Within cities, the employment growth of small businesses in the neighbourhood exceeds employment growth of large companies on industrial estates. Neighbourhood economic development sti...

Spatial planning provides a framework for dealing with land use, and must thus be inclusive, transparent and well-informed. It also supplies a basis for land development which aims at delivering serviced plots for all kind of functions. The current climate of negotiations between the authorities and land developers has given rise to the suspicion t...

Excessive land use regulations aimed at containing urban sprawl have been criticised, because they may overcompensate for the external effects of uncontrolled greenfield development and contribute to stagnation in house building. Taxes on building in green spaces may be an instrument for balancing urban growth and the protection of the landscape. T...

This paper discusses house price developments in the Netherlands, specifically focussing on the question whether current house prices in the Dutch owner-occupied market are likely to decrease. We analyse three aspects of the question based on a literature review: (1) whether there is a house price bubble ready to burst; (2) whether house prices wil...

In deze bijdrage brengen we in kaart hoe de Nederlandse praktijk van lage grondprijzen voor corporatiewoningen zich verhoudt tot de Europese regelgeving over staatssteun. Is de huidige praktijk toelaatbaar en zo nee, hoe kan wel worden voldaan aan de Europese regels?

This is a report requested by the audit committee of the City of Enschede. It studies the question whether the active land policy of the City of Enschede is effective and efficient in the context of the Programme on Spatial Development (PSD) of the municipality. The report discusses the aims of the PSD and investigates current land development poli...

Land consolidation is generally considered to be a slow planning instrument that does not fit with the present-day dynamics of green areas within the metropolitan domain. Other instruments are now being launched to plan metropolitan green areas. However, the land consolidation approach has been used in the Midden-Delfland region, and has made it po...

Promoting mixed-use development is part of policies aimed at enhancing urban quality. Until recently, however, industry and housing have rarely been found together in the same development as there is a long tradition of keeping these functions separate. As part of a compact-city policy, Dutch local authorities are in the process of introducing hous...

De commissie heeft, in overleg met de bestuurlijke trekkers en Riek Bakker, de vrijheid genomen om het werkgebied ruimer op te vatten dan de gebiedsafbakening van de opdrachtgever. Het advies heeft betrekking op het cultuurlandschap en het groen in het gebied tussen de glastuinbouw van het Westland, en de aaneengesloten stedelijke bebouwing van Den...

This is an advice on the governance of Midden Delfland. MIdden Delfland is a predominantly green area, surrounded by cities, such as, Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft and the greenhouse area of Westland, in the West of the Netherlands. the report provides an analysis of the issues and an overview of state of play in keeping Midden Delfland a green and t...

Planning on a national level performs a different function to planning on a local level. Uncertainty plays a larger role, as national planning is often more abstract, i.e., local government has its own responsibilities for the precise location of activities, and zoning of land use. National planning is a process in which public and private agencies...

Building on previously developed land is a top priority in Dutch compact-city policies. During the 1980s government grants supported building on these locations. In 1990 nonsubsidised housing accounted for only 5% of the housing programme for these inner-city sites. In 1995, as a result of the transformation of the welfare state in the Netherlands,...

According to a 1994 law, 'urbanising agents', which can be either public land-development agencies or private companies selected by public procurement, are responsible for infrastructure provision in the region of Valencia. Landowners are obligated to collaborate with the urbanising agent, pay the costs of the infrastructure and cede land for publi...

The Single European Market could conceivably make a deep impact on established practices of land development. Changes to the explicit and implicit rules that have hitherto governed the land market will re-shape the actions of agencies. Rules on state aid and public procurement are particularly pertinent to land development. European regulations on...

Land development planning for urban areas has evolved separately from planning for rural areas in the Netherlands. These traditions are in a process of merging. Recreational facilities and investments in nature are more and more part of a concerted urban design of large-scale green field urban developments. The idea is that planning gain must be in...

<?tlsb=-.02w>There are a number of different criteria for measuring the success of plans in planning. In the planning literature there is a debate about the criterion of conformance (that is, whether spatial development is according to plan) as opposed to performance (that is, whether the plan has shown the way to better decisionmaking), which is,...

In the Netherlands many national urban regeneration funds are concentrated in the Investment Budget for Urban Regeneration (a.k.a. IUR), a block grant made to 30 major cities and the 12 provinces for use in the smaller municipalities. IUR 1 covers the period 2000–2004. IUR 2 is based on the experience of IUR 1 and will be effective in the period 20...

Differences between the legal systems of common law and civil law have attained attendance in the economic literature of “the new comparative economics” (Djankov et al, 2003) A relevant difference between these legal systems is in the principle of good faith, which has a specific meaning in private law. It does not only refer to a principle of hone...

This paper is based on a comparative study made by both authors. The study includes a comparison of public-private co-operation in land development process both in Finland and in the Netherlands. The land development process involves the acquisition of raw land, detailed physical planning, improvements of soil, construction of the infrastructure an...

De Nederlandse regering beschikt sinds enige jaren over een Fonds Economische Structuurversterking (FES). De Interdepartementale Commissie Economische Structuurversterking (ICES), bestaande uit de secretarissen-generaal van de investeringsdepartementen adviseert het Kabinet over prioriteiten inzake ruimtelijk-economische investeringen. In dit verb...

In The Netherlands, national urban regeneration policies are undergoing a radical process of decentralisation. Many major national funds are concentrated in an Investment Budget for Urban Regeneration (IUR) and are decentralised to 30 major cities and the 12 provinces for the smaller municipalities. Establishing the IUR is seen as an important prec...

De hoofdvraag van dit onderzoek is: Wat is de kwaliteit van het aan- en verkoopbeleid van onroerend goed van de gemeente Tilburg in het licht van het oordeel van de niet-gemeentelijke partijen hierover? De volgende omissies in het gemeentelijke beleidskader worden onderscheiden: hoe om te gaan met de situatie wanneer een projectontwikkelaar voor ve...

Medio 1996 is de gewijzigde Wet voorkeursrecht gemeenten (Wvg) in werking getreden. Hierdoor kan een groot aantal gemeenten gebieden aanwijzen waar eigenaren die grond willen verkopen, deze grond eerst aan de gemeente moeten aanbieden. Op deze wijze zou de regisserende rol van gemeenten bij locatieontwikkeling versterkt kunnen worden. Mogelijk heef...

Studying plan implementation seems simple. Either plans work, or they don’t! However, consider a plan that has been implemented, but does not have the desired effect. Is it a failure? Hardly! After all, the plan has been implemented. In fact, the shoe pinches somewhere else: the plan has been flawed. As Bardach (1980, 141) says, we should not “…nec...

Fascinated by the idea of 'the end of growth', Dutch planners turned away from the ongoing business of growth management in the 1980s. Their newly formulated marketing stategy based on the idea of a 'policy life cycle', analogous to the product life cycle, suggested that they should focus on other issues with more political appeal. However, one of...

This book is about Dutch physical planning, more in particular the experiences with the Fourth National Physical Planning report and the Fourth Report Extra. These experiences are put into their historical context. Apart from interpreting planning practice, the book also aims to improve it. Planning is about putting spatial decisions in a wider con...

From World War I until 1934, Vienna was a Social Democratic stronghold. Relations between Red Vienna and the garden city movement form the subject of various accounts. Most of them decry the emphasis which Vienna's housing policy put on superblocks at the expense of homes with gardens advocated by the garden city movement. These accounts are, howev...

This paper adds to the literature on the ‘performance’ rather than the ‘conformance’ of plans, relating the arguments to an issue that is under‐researched: the evaluation of communicative planning. With the ‘IOR‐School’, it argues that the purpose of planning is to improve the quality of decisions. To establish how plans can do that, the paper look...

This paper explores, by using the concept of planning doctrine, the way planning agencies can function in a changing environment.Two models of doctrinal change are presented. A case study of Dutch national physical planning illustrates he concept and points to the importance of de-bureaucratization. Planning Theory, 7-8, pp 100-115

Member states of the European Union are not allowed to grant aid that distorts competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods as this may effect trade between member states. Rules on state aid are laid down in the EC Treaty with the general principle that state aid is not allowed and that unjustified state aid must...

A large part of the population has no access to proper housing. This situation is most severe in large growing metropolises in the developing world, such as Istanbul, Turkey, where a third of the population is living in squatter housing. Typically there is a is a dual structure of both legal and illegal land development, where the legal sector is n...

In Turkey, there is a dual structure as legal-illegal in land development and dwelling production. Government is regulator instead of being direct investor until 1980s in dwelling production. After 1980s, government is both investor and regulator in dwelling production. Also, roles in the land development by acting as both regulator and investor ha...

The OTB’s research covers the areas of housing, urban, mobility and geo-studies. The research activities deal with the built environment, and refer to aspects of the technological sciences, the policy and management sciences, the behavioural sciences, spatial disciplines and the application of information and communications technology. This researc...