Tristan Claus

Tristan Claus holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture (KULeuven, 2016) and a Master’s degree in Urban Design and Spatial Planning (KULeuven, 2018), with a master dissertation on the impact of constituency service – an informal approach of politicians to help individual citizens – on local planning policy in Flanders (mayor planning). In addition, Tristan completed a summerschool in Riga (Riga Technical University) and an erasmus in Lisbon (ULisboa). He worked as a researcher on a study on the demolition of vacant farm buildings (Boer Ruimt Veld, 2019-2021) and started a PhD research on the impact of constituency service on planning policy and urban sprawl in 2021. It happens regularly that the Flemish government approves legislation that undermines its own ambitious strategic planning policy vision. Through constituency service building project needs of individual land owners seem to scale up to generic changes in the Flemish planning legislation. Tristan’s research aims to expose that underlying process through in-depth interviews with decisive actors, starting from recent disruptive changes in planning legislation. A comparison with North Brabant (NL) and Hauts-de-France (FR) will finally determine if constituency service and its spatial impact is unique for Flanders.

Research:

Interest group politics
Planning instruments and legislation
Urban and regional planning policy

Key Publications:

Verhoeve, A., Jacob, M., Vanempten, E., Christiaens, A., Claeys, M., Leinfelder, H., Claus, T., Van Herck, K. (2021). Boer ruimt veld. Leegstand als motor voor ontharding in agrarisch gebied. Ruimte, 13 (51), 30-35.

Claus, T. (2020). Geef vergunningen niet zomaar, ook niet als we het lief vragen. De Standaard, pp. 26-27.

Claus, T. (2020). U kan voor mij de was doen, maar geef mij geen vergunning omdat ik u dat lief gevraagd heb. In G. Bouma, B. Boonstra, & E. Vanempten (Eds.), Nieuwe Zekerheid: Bijdragen aan de Plandag 2020 (pp. 186–190). Den Haag: Stichting Planologische DiskussieDagen.

Claus, T., & Boonstra, B. (2020). The actor-relational approach in Flanders : meeting the practice of political service. In B. Boonstra, P. Davids, & A. Staessen (Eds.), Opening up the planning landscape : 15 years of actor-relational approaches to spatial planning in Flanders, the Netherlands and beyond (pp. 291–298). In Planning.

Claus, T., & Leinfelder, H. (2019). De invloed van politiek dienstbetoon op het lokaal ruimtelijk beleid in Vlaanderen. Ruimte & Maatschappij, 11(1), 43–64.