Most initiatives by residents and businesses affect the living environment. Therefore, many initiatives require a permit. For example, for building or renovating a house. Using the Omgevingsloket, initiators can find out whether a permit is required and submit the application. The municipality tests the application against the rules in the environmental plan and against rules from other authorities. 

Three things are important for applying for a permit:

1. When your initiative deviates from the environmental plan and you need cooperation from the municipality, we ask you to coordinate with the municipality in advance. You can do this by submitting a draft application in the Environment Desk. You will then be referred to the intake table. After which your initiative will be integrally checked for desirability and the municipality will indicate important preconditions. This eases the formal procedure. 

2. Inform the surrounding area of your plans. So the immediate neighbors if you want to build an extension or the residents of your street if you want to start a business in your building. When applying for a permit, you must indicate whether you have participated in the process and, if so, what the outcome was. For a number of cases, going through participation is mandatory. 

3. The initiatives that deviate from the environmental plan are called out-of-plan environmental plan activities. There are basically two permit procedures for these. The regular and the extensive procedure. More information about the outer plan environmental plan activity can be found in the Manual BOPA.

Procedure explanation

In a regular procedure, you will hear within eight weeks whether you will receive the permit. The municipality can extend the decision period once by a maximum of six weeks. For more complicated cases, the Municipal Executive may decide that an extensive procedure must be followed. This occurs when an out-of-plan environmental plan activity can have major consequences for the physical environment. Or against which several interested parties can be expected to have objections. The municipality then decides on the permit application within 6 months.

Once a decision has been made, it will be announced via www.officielebekendmakingen.nl. The notices keep you informed of all decisions in your area. A granted permit does not take effect until after the day of publication or posting for inspection. In the case of a permit for an activity that you cannot repair (for example, cutting down a tree or demolishing a building), B&W may stipulate that it does not take effect until four weeks after the day of publication.

Cost

Want to know what kind of costs you need to consider? Then take a look at the Land Policy and Cost Recovery program and its appendices .