Three nature associations and a neighbor are opposed to a large golf project by Paul Gheysens in Knokke

Minister of Environment Zuhal Demir granted the permit for the project, raising eyebrows as she declined an almost identical application on August 2, 2022. The project of the Ypres real estate magnate Paul Gheysens is not well received by 3 nature associations in the area. These are vzw Protect Trees and Nature, Natuurpunt Brugs Ommeland and Middenkust and Groen vzw. The associations go together to the Board of Licensing Disputes. “We hope that the council will follow our arguments: we created this landscape together, we cannot waste it on the building drive of the promoters.” Neighbor Peter Taffeiren has also opposed the project since the beginning. With the help of renowned hydrogeologist Dr. Peter Moonen, he was able to demonstrate that the project dries up and salinizes the polders.

Ambitious project

The project can be called ambitious to say the least: 120 hectares of agricultural land will be converted into a 27-hole golf course, a golf hotel with 350 rooms, including 200 luxury suites with a surface area of ​​300 m². That hotel goes 14 meters into the ground to build a parking garage in 4 layers and rises 33 meters above the landscape. 6,000 m2 of conference space, 1,350 parking spaces and 90 flats for employees. The Knokke urban fringe forest must also be created in this project, but the nature associations are not satisfied with the latter.

Too fast, too big and too expensive

“We also realize that the economy and urbanization require the necessary space to develop, but the pace is too fast: like an expanding ink blot, the various sub-municipalities are growing towards each other at an ever faster pace. Soon we will be one big coastal city,” says Natuurpunt Brugs Ommeland en Middenkust. Vzw Protect Trees and Nature, on the other hand, is disturbed by the size of the project and especially by the volume of buildings: “We are concerned about the effects on nature. The expansion of the urban fringe forest is a good thing, but a forest can grow anywhere, a historic polder landscape, on the other hand, is one of the fastest disappearing landscapes.” Groen vzw is also involved in the discussion. The non-profit organization was recently active in the Blankenbergse Steenweg file in Bruges and is currently also working to preserve De Spie – a Bruges polder area with old protected grasslands, where a business park is being planned. “We see that farmers are finding it difficult to get hold of land in this region, it is just getting too expensive,” it sounds there.

Three fundamental pillars

The profession of the neighbor and the three associations is based on three fundamental pillars: the destruction of cultural-historical and landscape-ecological value, the desiccation and salinisation of the polders and the misapprehension and improper use of the spatial destination.