Zonevreemd
Is your company home or your company building not in the right zone? Are you limited in (expansion) possibilities? Then your company may be in a foreign zone. Fortunately, in recent years the government has designed a clear framework for those companies that are not in the right zone.
Would you like to know, specifically for your situation, whether you can still renovate, rebuild or even expand your business? Then we highly recommend that you talk to the specialists of Profex.
What is that, being ‘zonevreemd’
"In Dutch, 'zonevreemd' refers to buildings or companies situated in a zone that is not conform to the urban planning regulations in force.
Basically, this has nothing to do with whether or not the buildings are urban planning permitted. A company with the necessary planning permissions can therefore also be perfectly situated in a ‘zone alien’ because it is located in a zone with different zoning regulations.
For example, a groundworker/breaker's yard is located in an agricultural area although it belongs in an urban planning area for craftsmen and small & medium-sized businesses.
How does a company become situated in a zone that is not conform to the urban planning regulations in force?
There are several possibilities. Either it is a historically developed situation. For example, the soil work company once started out as a contract worker, an activity that belongs in an agricultural area. Due to the growth and diversification of the company, the company develops more soil work activities and the contract work activity disappears into the background, to be finally completely stopped. What remains is a 'zone alien' business, based on the function it performs, with a long (agricultural) tradition and the necessary urban development permits at that location. In fact, functional changes have been subject to an urban planning permit since 1984.
A company can also become ‘zone alien’ due to a change in the zoning plans. The current regional plans date from the 1970s and 1980s. Most of them were drawn up in 1977 or 1978. At that time, many companies became ‘zone alien’ for the first time. In the 1990s, legislation on spatial planning in Flanders underwent a transformation: the Flanders Spatial Structure Plan was created and a new decree on spatial planning was issued in 1999. From then on, regional plans were no longer updated, but it was up to the provinces and municipalities to draw up spatial implementation plans (SIPs). The government is currently working on this. So, it can happen that a SIP does not take over the destination of the regional plan but changes it, and a company that was zone-owned becomes ‘zone alien’.
