Utility land use in the green transition: when visions and practice collide

The European Green Deal will have profound impact on European landscapes. Several of these impacts are widely explored, including agricultural transformation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, increasing production of biobased materials, and afforestation and rewilding. In European regions under high population pressure, this transformation should be combined with planning for an increased housing demand housing. Recently, visions that support shaping pathways for planning such landscapes have been created in participatory processes at multiple scales. The development and translation into planning of such visions however collides with practice regarding utility services, which is problematic given the increased need for utility services under a green transformation, including green energy generation, power stations, high voltage lines, wastewater treatment plants, and data centers.

 

This study synthesizes how utility services fit in sustainable land use planning. In case studies in the Netherlands, visions for sustainable land use were co-created in a participatory process. Here, integration of utility services in sustainable landscapes was an emerging , that was unpacked to optimize multifunctionality. A scoping review and data inventory provided insight in the extent of utility service demands, and a review of land use visions for the green transition inventoried the inclusion of the topic of utility services. Finally, the possibilities for ex-ante sustainability assessment in spatial planning of high-voltage power stations was explored in a Dutch case study.

 

Sector specific scenarios and existing plans indicate an expansion of the area needs of utility services, but this is hardly addressed in land use visions underpinning planning processes. While intrinsic to visioning, this does undermine the applicability and credibility of visionary scenarios in planning processes. Ex-ante sustainability assessment of high-voltage power stations requires legal changes in the planning process. The participatory vision cocreation highlighted several options for efficient multifunctional space use that allowed better integration of the utility land required for the green transition. Altogether, the land are required for these services is limited, but because of the profound impact on local landscapes, better ex-ante consideration of utility services is essential for the plausibility and uptake of scenarios on green landscape transitions.