The municipal council of Geel unanimously provisionally approved the ‘Spatial policy plan Geel’ on April 1st 2021. This makes Geel the first to start the official procedure for the approval of a spatial policy plan: not only the first municipality in Flanders, but also faster than the region of Flanders or a province.
This provisional approval is the result of a rather long planning process that started in 2013 with the municipal council’s decision to partially revise the ‘municipal spatial structure plan for Geel’, dating from 2006. To do this, Geel hired experts from OMGEVING to support the ‘city development and centre strategy policy’ department at both the content level and the procedural level. As the process progressed and the spatial policy plan began to take shape, the city decided not to revise the structure plan but to opt resolutely for the new plan figure.
The Spatial policy plan Geel is a very balanced document that consists of a strategic vision note (Geel 2040) and five policy frameworks which further elaborate and concretise the content of this strategic vision note. It was achieved through a very open planning process and is therefore widely supported, both by the residents and by all the relevant stakeholders who want to work together on a new future for the municipality.
The public inquiry can now begin.
