At long last, our final plans can now be filed with the Lubbeek town council. We visited the architect yesterday to sign (and sign, and sign, and sign) the plans and building application. Not in duplicate, not in triplicate, but six copies of everything, all of them to be included with the application. But no matter, after the long delay on regional level, at least things are moving again. Albeit in the wrong direction.

Normally, we would have filed our plans with the town council, who would have sent them along to the regional authorities, who would have turned them down after months of deliberation. The way we did it now, we already have permission on the regional level, although the town council will still be sending them over, the regional people will still be looking at them, and the whole process will probably take up to three months.

Belgium is no place for the impatient…

These are the plans Herwig Van Soom will be filing with Lubbeek town council next week (click on them for the full size versions):

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Apparently, our poor windmill isn’t the only victim of the Flemish town planners. According to an article in Het Belang van Limburg, reprinted by Livios:

Member of the Flemish Parliament Johan Sauwens (CD&V) has launched an attack on the Flemish Administration for Town Planning. “Town Planning consciously blocks hundreds of building applications in Flanders, costing private citizens and businesses tens of millions of euros per year. The minister urgently needs to sort this out.”

Meanwhile, our problems now appear to be sorted. After an official summarily blocked our application (or promised to, before we even filed the application), Ilze set up a meeting with someone more senior. This official turned out to be very nice and absolutely reasonable.

Based on Flemish legislation, we are allowed to have the property rezoned from agricultural to residential use. However, based on the same legislation, we are not allowed to perform any major construction on the site for the next ten years. That means renovating the barn as it stands, and not replacing it with a proper house.

On the plus side, this will preserve the industrial nature of the building, and indulge my taste for ramshackle surroundings. We have also applied to put the windmill to multifunctional use, which means more storage and office space. On the negative side, the barn does partly obscure the windmill, which is still the crowning glory of the property. And in ten years, just as I begin to settle in comfortably, Ilze will insist on knocking down a few walls to build her dream house.

Still, ten years of peace and quiet, what more can I ask for…

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The highways and byways of owning property in Belgium are often tortuous and Byzantine. We have reached a stage where we’re happy with the plans, and all that is needed to start shopping around for a builder is planning permission. Now, planning permission is something you expect to have to deal with in any civilised country. I wouldn’t want my neighbours to build wherever and however they want, so I don’t mind dealing with laws that impose the same restrictions on me.

However, this is Belgium, and paperwork often has a nasty edge.

Our plans were shown to officials at the Lubbeek town hall, who were quite happy with what we proposed doing. Knock down some ugly (and probably structurally unsound) walls on the barn, replace them with something modern and strong, and harmonise the construction effort to ensure maximum visibility of the windmill. No more ugly barn, but rather a modern, unassuming house blending into the background.

Yet despite Lubbeek’s approval, planning permission has to be requested from a regional department in Leuven. This is a process that can take up to three months, and used to take even longer. Playing it safe, our architect had a meeting with an official from this department before filing the paperwork, in case something had to be tweaked.

“Nyet,” the official decided. The request for planning permission will be denied.

By why on earth? An eyesore, with no architectural or historical value, will be replaced with an aesthetically pleasing house. The windmill, which does have architectural or historical value, will be preserved.

“We don’t allow building with wood,” the official stated. Note that this is a statement he wouldn’t back up on paper, and sounds so illogical that I can only assume he made it up on the spot.

“And anyway, it doesn’t meet the requirements of the law.”

This is a strange exhibition of the Belgian paradox. We are, in fact, fully compliant with the law. Belgian federal law, that is. The barn has been rezoned from agricultural/industrial to residential use, and we have the paperwork to prove it. Unfortunately, after all the legal requirements are listed, there is a single caveat: additional requirements can be provided for in Flemish legislation. On a local level, the Flemish government can add stipulations that may turn the clear federal law to legal mush.

And so they did.

The Flemish law states that, once a building is rezoned under this specific law, the owners may not undertake “significant” building works, or spend “a large” amount of money on it. Of course, “significant” building works could be anything between an hour that makes me miss Star Trek on a Saturday afternoon or building a full scale replica of the Taj Mahal made from sugar cubes. “Significant” is not a fixed measure.

Ditto for “a large amount” of money. Last week, when I was still convinced I would win a 180 million euro lottery jackpot, I was promising Ilze a million euros a cup to make me tea. Today, having only won 9 euros, I’ll baulk at spending anything on something like tea. So the Flemish “large amount of money” is totally meaningless.

Fortunately for us, we have approval to turn the barn into a residence. Black on white, the paperwork states that we are allowed to build a house largely based on the barn, not exceeding a volume of 1000m³. It’s pretty hard for the recalcitrant official to get around this, but he indicated that if he was forced to approve the plans, he’ll keep to a strict interpretation of the paperwork we already have. So, no breaking down walls, no replacing the whole structure, no brand spanking new house. We’ll have to renovate in the real sense of the word.

Ilze and the architect will be meeting with this official and his immediate superior this week, in the hope that Ilze’s combination of baby tears and psychopathic anger (coupled with an iron disdain for any form of logic) will be able to steamroller the system into allowing us to stick with the original building plans. If this doesn’t work, plan B would be to get back to the drawing board (quite literally) and seeing how we can turn the barn into something habitable.

The law stipulates that the ban on major renovations lasts ten years, so we’ll have to be patient before we can do what we really want. In the meantime, I’ll get my shovel and start working on some basements and bunkers. Let’s see Big Brother policing that!

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Our architect Herwig Van Soom is quite a supporter of straw bale building. Although we finally decided to compromise on wood (more environmental and better isolation than bricks, but not as avant garde as building with straw), the concept does appeal to me. Straw offers much better isolation than bricks or wood, and puts less strain on the environment than traditional building materials. The straw is sealed against moisture by plastering it, so a straw bale house looks pretty much like any other.

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This is the latest sketch from Herwig Van Soom of ORCA. The wood paneling outside will be less pronounced, but the profile should be what we build. Lubbeek town council have given us verbal approval for the planned structure, and the architect will now draw up complete plans to submit for approval.

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The latest news on the project is that we have a new architect, and will be working with a new builder. Herwig Van Soom of ORCA in Leuven has already produced several sketches, including two that specifically appeal to me (click for the 1024 x 768 pixel versions):

The straight, clean lines of both designs appeal to the modernist in me, although I realise that filling in the wireframes can still make or break the general aesthetics of the house.

I also like the way in which the windmill isn’t used as some faux rural or medieval prop, but can come into its own as symbol of the industrial revolution. In fact, it’s easy to forget that the windmill is not that old at all (despite me referring to it as “gothic”), but was built just over a century ago.

A physical connection between the house and the windmill might not be feasible at the outset, but in time planning permission could be obtained to allow this.

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At long last, we’re entering final discussions about the house plans. We have a meeting with the architect next week, when we’ll hopefully be able to sign off on the plans. We’re still in discussions with the contractor about the price of having all this built, although he did come down from three times our budget to two.

For your viewing pleasure the plans are available on Flickr.

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This drawing from July 1924 (click for a larger version) shows the windmill in its original state, with sails and the wooden section at the top. The entrance used by carts can also be seen at the bottom. We’ve been discussing the should-we, shouldn’t-we of having new sails made, but I suspect we might not restore it to that state (a combination of costs versus aesthetics — I actually quite like the gothic look of the structure without the sails). On the other hand, using the sails to power a generator for supplying electricity to my server farm sounds like a geek dream…

The document this image was taken from states (translated from Dutch): The windmill was constructed by Jozef Vrijdags in 1870. The mill was later operated by miller Frans Verheyden, who retired in 1944. The last owner was Emiel Timmermans. The sails were removed in 1936, leaving only the body.

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We’ve reached an important decision on renovations, the kind of informed decision you come to after shouting matches at building and renovations exhibitions. The barn will be renovated first, under the watchful eye of Ilze’s more eclectic post-modernist rococco design approach. The windmill itself will be renovated in a more modernist/minimalist style, under my own direction.

Next week Wednesday we should be getting the cheque from the bank, and on Friday we’ll be going to our notary’s offices in Mechelen to make the payment and sign the deed transfer. Champagne will probably be consumed on Friday evening!

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We’ve had a preliminary quote from Kristoffer Gielen, our architect, and the costs for renovating the barn/shed on the property (no windmill involved here) will break down as follows:

* Preparatory work and demolitions: € 2,000
* General construction work: € 30,000
* Adding a proper roof: € 24,000
* External carpentry: € 20,000
* Plumbing and heating: € 16,000
* Electrical works: € 8,000

This comes to a neat € 100,000, so we could probably shave off a euro here and there, but this will always be a high-budget project. I need to go over this in detail with the architect once the financial side is sorted out (we should get a green/red light from the banks by Tuesday). I’m not sure what “external carpentry” entails, for example. Doors and windows I can’t really see as being external. Perhaps some cockamamy request from Ilze to turn the shed into Heidi’s grandfathers hut, who knows?

As long as we’re doing a lot of things from scratch, I would also like to explore a more high-tech or innovative approach. I’m already looking into LEDs and fibre-optics for lighting, so why not extend this approach to plumbing and electricity? Like adding a stainless steel reservoir for water supply, so that we always have a stored supply and higher water pressure.

Ilze and I have also discussed the possibility of solar panels for generating an ancialliary/backup electricity supply. This is Belgium, so sunshine isn’t the most logical source for a steady supply, but by adding a battery of… erm… batteries, we could recharge them whenever there’s a spot of sunlight. However, I don’t think the budget will allow for luxuries like this. I’m also worried about the fragility of these things: when you have a two ton diesel engine in the next room, everything seems a bit fragile by comparison. But I expect to see more frequent and more severe storms in the area, and I don’t know whether the average solar panel will withstand high wind and/or severe hailstorms. More research to do, I guess.

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