After completing theimpact meter, you will know how much impact your initiative has on the environment. If your initiative has a high impact, a more extensive participation process is needed. You involve more people and take more action to inform people. Health thereby for a good reflection of the stakeholders. It is important that you make it clear to stakeholders whether there is still room for adjustments to your plan.

If that space is not there, then only inform them (participate). If you do see room, you can ask for the opinion of stakeholders (think along) and/or ask for suggestions/advice for your initiative (cooperate with the plan). You may really want to develop the plan or parts of it together with stakeholders, in which case there may also be room for a joint decision (co-deciding). 

At the end of a meeting and/or conversation, record the outcomes in the participation log. This will contain the following information: 

• Who was involved and what their role was;
• What the opinions, ideas and concerns of stakeholders are; 
• How you take this into account in further development

Once you ask the municipality for a permit, this participation log should be sent to the municipality along with the report(s) of the participation meeting(s) and the signature form. Click here for the participation log and click for the signature form. 

The municipality assesses whether the participation process was carried out carefully. The point is to show that the surroundings have been taken into account as much as possible. In doing so, parties do not always have to agree with each other. However, the municipality does want information about this. It needs it for an assessment. The municipality must motivate its decisions and weigh all relevant interests (General Administrative Law Act). The more impact your plan has on the environment, the more interests are involved.

If the municipality is of the opinion that information is still missing, it can, for example, ask you for additional consultation with interested parties or initiate its own opinion procedure. All this often has consequences for the term of the permit application.

If the participation has been properly completed and the accompanying documents have been positively assessed, the municipality will proceed to grant an environmental permit for your initiative. 

Would you like to read all the information about the participation process in one overview? Then take a look at the Leidraad Participatie bij ruimtelijke initiatieven in de gemeente Geldrop-Mierlo

Do you have questions or need more information? Then please contact case manager environmental permits tel. ( 040) 289 38 93.