\nJust two kilometres north of Brussels’ European quarter lies Belgium’s largest urban wasteland.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the mid-1990s, the 24-hectare railway yard in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood was surrendered to the wild. Since then, researchers<\/a> say it has become a haven for bee species and one of the most biodiverse areas in the country.\n<\/p>\n \n“There are so many butterflies, birds, and it is just so quiet,” explains Emeline, whose garden is adjacent to the field. “When I come home from work and I see it, I just feel rejuvenated.”\n<\/p>\n \nBut Friche Josaphat, as the site is known, is now the latest flashpoint in a Europe-wide debate over the balance between biodiversity and the need for more homes, especially social and accessible housing.\n<\/p>\n \n“Brussels needs green areas, and it needs social housing,” explains Katja, who lives nearby.\n<\/p>\n \n‘No obvious justification’\n<\/p>\n \nThe Belgian green party Ecolo has tabled a motion<\/a> in the Brussels regional parliament to suspend all construction on publicly owned brownfield sites until a new approach to reconciling nature and property development is in place.\n<\/p>\n \nIf approved, Ecolo\u2019s proposal would suspend all building projects \u2013 including 509 housing units planned for the Josaphat site \u2013 on 10 publicly owned plots in Brussels that have reverted to a natural state.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe first objective is to suspend a certain number of construction projects because we believe there is no obvious justification for them,\u201d John Pitseys, a member of Ecolo in the Brussels regional parliament told Euractiv, \u201cparticularly given the consequences these projects would have for biodiversity in the city”.\n<\/p>\n \nThe moratorium would halt all development until the capital revises its regional land use plan, which has not been changed for 25 years.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat we are saying is that until we have agreed on a vision of the city, as long as there is no document setting out the vision for the next 20 or 30 years, we no longer want to continue building as if it were business as usual,\u201d Pitseys said.\n<\/p>\n \nWeighing the benefits\n<\/p>\n \nWhether to develop housing, services or parks, or simply to allow brownfield sites to return to their natural state is a recurring debate in Brussels, Pitseys said.\n<\/p>\n \nThe green lawmaker acknowledged that the issue of urban land use is becoming ever more pressing as more people live and work in towns and cities.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThese discussions are all the more important because it is in the city that most of human activity will take place in the next 30 or 40 years. Especially as climate and environmental problems get worse,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nParliamentary hearings began in July, with French-speaking Ecolo gaining allies.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Reformist Movement (MR), the largest bloc in the regional parliament with 20 out of 89 seats, have signalled their support, vowing to turn the area into a nature reserve, Bruzz reported<\/a>. Centrist party Les Engag\u00e9s and the Flemish nationalist party N-VA have also said they would support the move.\n<\/p>\n \nDiscussions are slated to continue in September.\n<\/p>\n \nThe housing crisis\n<\/p>\n \nThe conflict between the housing crisis \u2013 a Europe-wide problem, as recognised by the European Commission, which is currently consulting<\/a> on a forthcoming affordable housing strategy \u2013 and the preservation of natural areas is not exclusive to Brussels.\n<\/p>\n \nA controversial law was recently approved in Portugal to allow for building on previously protected green-belt areas, raising criticism<\/a> from opposition politicians, housing experts and environmental NGOs.\n<\/p>\n \nThe conservative government in Lisbon has defended what it says is a necessary move to solve the countries\u2019 severe\u00a0housing crisis<\/a>, but critics say it is an excuse to build grand houses to feed the country’s growing luxury real estate market. The approach will not solve the acute housing problem as there is already sufficient urban land, experts argue<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \nIn Germany, Berlin’s Tempelhofer Feld \u2013 a vast field reclaimed from a former airport \u2013 has become a focal point for the capital’s housing shortage. Although a 2014 referendum argued against new housing on the 355-hectare site, the new government is keen to start building on its outskirts<\/a> at least.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the UK, a 2021 biodiversity net gain law determines that planning permission is granted on condition that developers deliver a 10% increase in biodiversity \u2013 albeit not necessarily on-site. However, the Labour government is\u00a0planning<\/a> to rewrite the rule book, seeing it as an obstacle to achieving their pledge of delivering hundreds of thousands of new homes.\n<\/p>\n \nExpect the Commission’s upcoming Affordable Housing Plan, scheduled for the spring of 2026, to trigger heated discussions \u2013 both in Brussels’ European quarter and in the local corridors of power.\n<\/p>\n \n(rh, vc, cs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just two kilometres north of Brussels’ European quarter lies Belgium’s largest urban wasteland. In the mid-1990s, the 24-hectare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-50092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}