Towards a Sustainable Transformation of the Detached Houses in Peri-urban Flanders, Belgium

Working with the Flemish house people already know

In this study, we asked how the large stock of detached houses in peri-urban Flanders can change without ignoring the attachment people feel to their homes and neighbourhoods. The detached family house is deeply woven into the Flemish landscape and into ideas about privacy, greenery and freedom. At the same time, low-density development consumes land, increases reliance on travel, uses energy and often leaves large houses occupied by much smaller households.

We focused on underused homes, many originally built for families whose children have since moved out. The data we considered suggested that around forty percent of detached single-family houses in Flanders were underused. We did not treat that as a judgement on the people living there. It is a spatial condition with real consequences: the region faces pressure for new housing while a substantial existing resource is difficult to adapt.

Change has to make sense at home

We combined statistical mapping with interviews to understand both the places where transformation might be possible and the people it would affect. After mapping housing characteristics and settlement patterns, we tested scenarios with 91 homeowners through 61 interviews in ten low-density neighbourhoods. This helped us compare planning ambitions with motivations, concerns and resistance that do not appear on a map.

What we heard made clear that sustainable transformation is not simply a retrofit problem or a matter of convincing people to move. Financial security, privacy, emotional attachment and the wish to remain near familiar people all shape decisions. But there are also openings. Change becomes easier to imagine when it can improve comfort, accessibility, ageing in place, family proximity or the life of the neighbourhood—not only when it is presented as an environmental sacrifice.

We therefore argue against a false choice between keeping suburban patterns untouched and replacing them wholesale. Peri-urban Flanders needs differentiated strategies that recognise local potential and start from conversation with inhabitants. The existing housing landscape, its social meaning and its buildings are part of the challenge, but they are also the material from which more space-efficient, lower-impact and future-ready forms of living can grow.