Is it permissible to deviate from an environmental permit during construction?

In its ruling of December 22, 2025, the District Court of The Hague had to assess whether it was permissible to deviate from an environmental permit that had been issued during the reconstruction of a building. The case concerned an office building in Leiden for which several environmental permits had been granted over the years, including for the conversion of the office building into residential studios, then from non-independent to independent living space, then for the demolition and reconstruction of the building, and finally, on January 31, 2022, an environmental permit for changing the use to a hotel function.

On February 17, 2023, a local resident submitted an enforcement request because the construction work was allegedly being carried out in deviation from the permit granted for the demolition and reconstruction of the building. Among other things, the fire compartmentation had been implemented differently and the facade had not been realized as specified in the permit.

The municipality only partially granted the enforcement request. For the other deviations, the council considered that either there was no violation or that the deviations had been legalized through approved revision drawings. The latter would mean that the environmental permit of January 31, 2022, would have been amended by the approval of the revision drawings. The local resident disagreed with this and appealed to the court. 

The court first explained the legal framework for changing a building plan and permit. A building plan may only be changed without a new environmental permit if the change is of a minor nature. Moreover, such a change is only possible if the permit to be changed is not yet irrevocable.

In the court's opinion, the legal framework was not complied with in this case. Firstly, the environmental permit of January 31, 2022 did not provide for permission to build at all, but only for the change of function to a hotel. Approving and stamping revision drawings as part of the environmental permit of January 31, 2022, cannot therefore in any case result in minor changes relating to construction being permitted. That was not what the permit was about at all.

Nor was it possible to regard the stamping and approval of the revised drawings as a minor change to the earlier permits, because those environmental permits were already irrevocable, meaning that no further changes were possible.

The court therefore ruled that violations had indeed occurred, because the deviations from the building plan were not permitted. The municipal executive should therefore have taken enforcement action.

Do you have any questions about the possibility of changing an environmental permit granted to you? Please contact Gerard van der Wende of Fleur Huisman.

You can read the ruling here.