Concerns over municipalities relaxing rules for placing solar panels

Many Dutch municipalities are relaxing their rules for installing solar panels on monuments and protected cityscapes. Heritage organizations are concerned about protecting the traditional Dutch facades, AD reports.

Amsterdam said in its Sustainable Heritage implementation agenda that there are currently “all kinds of restrictions,” but “in 2025, solar panels can be placed in full view on all roofs of monuments and buildings in protected views.” According to responsible alderman Alexander Scholtes, “green adjustments are necessary in order to pass on our heritage to future generations.”

The Dutch capital counts almost 9,800 national and municipal monuments and several protected cityscapes and views, including the canal belt, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2010. Amsterdam will elaborate on its plan of action after the summer. The municipality explicitly said that it would consult with UNESCO about the effect on the canal belt’s World Heritage status.

According to AD, monument organizations still fear the worst. “It could well be that they are risking their UNESCO status,” chairman Karel Loeff of the Heemschut Heritage Association told the newspaper. “The rules regarding world heritage are very strict. It is about authenticity, also in the roof landscape. The fact that you are now suddenly going to allow solar panels on the front because of sustainability is quite an intervention.”

The Cuypersgenootschap, an organization that wants to preserve the architectural heritage from the 19th and 20th centuries, also thinks that Amsterdam will “throw away their Unesco status” with this, secretary Leo Dubbelaar told AD.

Four years ago, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, part of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, said that monuments’ special heritage values must be protected, but they also have to contribute to the energy transition. Extreme weather caused by climate change also poses risks to monuments, and it makes little sense to protect them for future generations if there are no future generations to enjoy them. It agreed that protected monuments must jointly achieve a CO2 reduction of 40 percent in 2030 and 60 percent in 2040.

Amsterdam was not the only municipality to take note. Municipalities throughout the country are relaxing their rules for installing solar panels and other sustainability measures. Rotterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem, Nijmegen, Apeldoorn, and Enkhuizen are among those who announced more relaxed rules to allow the owners of old, often draughty buildings to do something about their energy bills and tackle this massive task.