ABSTRACT
Soil sanitation is inextricably linked with urban planning. Especially when there is a great pressure on the available building space, soil sanitation policy and planning policies have a lot in common. In The Netherlands settled soil sanitation policy aims at a complete sanitation of all the present soil contamination for the long term. Because of the immensely high costs of this sanitation programme, many contaminated sites are not eligible for a remediation soon. The sanitation of contaminated soil of abandoned inner city sites not only gets delayed because of conflicting contents of both policies, but by conflicting implementation of these policies as well. For soil protection and sanitation, the provincial government level is in charge (top down), while spatial and urban planning is developed by the local government level. Inner city development is thus delayed by this tension between soil sanitation policies and physical planning.
