ABSTRACT
The national and provincial authorities are still under an obligation to publish regular environmental policy plans covering all relevant environmental themes. Spatial planning is "bottom up" in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands the local land-use plan is crucial in the spatial planning system because it is the only land-use plan that is legally binding. The design of the renewed Spatial Planning Act allows environmental quality requirements with potential spatial consequences to be incorporated into land use plans. The combination of these policy innovations, that is, the formulation of an area-oriented environmental vision for each municipality and the incorporation of environmental quality requirements into land use plans, should create the conditions for ensuring that environmental and spatial concerns have an equal share in the spatial planning process. In this way, the desired shift from a standard-oriented towards a quality-oriented approach can be put into practice.
