Abstract

The new Environmental Planning Act is designed with the aim of reducing the complexity of current legislation for spatial and environmental planning. When issuing environmental permits, activities will be assessed with regard to their potential negative impact on the environment. To make this process simpler, faster and cheaper, the RIVM proposes to apply a stepwise assessment procedure. In many cases a decision can be made based on the limited information available. However, in cases where this is not possible, additional information needs to be considered. The RIVM has introduced this proposal as a first step to exploring further options for simplification.

In the first step of this assessment procedure, the proposed regulations define when and where specific activities are permitted. In the second step, the RIVM proposes to determine the "cutoff limits" (afkapgrenzen) of activities which affect the environment. If the activity in question exceeds these cutoff limits, it will be assessed with regard to its effect on environmental standards.

With the introduction of the proposed stepwise assessment procedure, it is important to monitor whether the quality of the environment is maintained. In this way any deterioration or exceedance of environmental values will be made visible and can therefore be prevented.