Brussels wakes up to its heritage

The majority of visitors to Brussels as well as residents of the city are likely to have picked their way at least once through the restaurant tables that line the rue des Bouchers (Butchers’ Street) and the adjoining maze of streets just behind the Grand’ Place.

The first references to this street are found in archives dating back to 1294. There is evidence that meat was being sold here in 1364 and by the Middle Ages it was a street inhabited mainly by butchers, which is how it got its name even if, as the passer-by will testify, restaurants have taken over.

Were it not for tenacious opposition from a band of local shop and restaurant owners in the 1950s, hungry tourists would be looking for steak or moules and frites elsewhere, because much of this area would have been a dual carriageway had city planners and real estate developers had their way. A whole series of 17th and 18th century buildings were up for demolition to make way for wider roads so that access to the Grand’ Place would be easier for visitors to the World Fair, which Brussels hosted in 1958.

In the wake of Expo 58 and with the full support of the Brussels City Council and its mayor, the Grand’ Place and the streets that surround it became l’Ilot Sacré, one of seven ‘islets’ that were earmarked for preservation and subject to strict planning permission. This area and a handful of others thus managed to escape the destruction wreaked upon much of the ancient and art nouveau Brussels by property speculators in the second half of the 20th century.

In the last couple of decades the city authorities appear to have cottoned on to their heritage: they stopped allowing cars to park in the Grand’ Place and in 1998 the area was designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco and the city of Brussels signed a pledge to preserve it at its best.

The city - not to be confused with the regional government of Brussels, which covers a much larger area, has emerged as a major property owner and landlord; since the 1980s it has amassed 4,500 properties in the Brussels commune, including parking space and building plots and as a result it has huge influence and control over the development of downtown Brussels.

More than half of the real estate owned by the city is in the form of apartments and some is offered as social housing. But the majority of apartments, commercial premises and houses it owns are attractive and desirable properties which quietly compete on the open market with those offered by commercial estate agents.

In 2001 the city created a property management company the Régie Foncière to handle the immense property portfolio it offers on the private market. It has the right to buy anything that comes up for sale by matching the best offer and can there-fore pre-empt rival buyers to secure any property it wants for the city.

Renato Serra, secretary of the Commune Libre de l’Ilot Sacré, an organisation dedicated to preservation of the Grand’ Place area, promotion of its folklore and defence of local business interests, says the city’s right to buy (the phrase in French is droit de pre-emption) can be an advantage in streets where properties are privately owned but left empty.

"You see a lot of properties with shops or restaurants on the ground floor but the floors above are abandoned," says Serra. "If the city owns them, they rent out the upper floors so that there is more of a balance between commercial and residential tenants."

In this way, the city is subtly using its property management company as a tool to regenerate the city centre, encouraging a variety of small business to rent newly renovated ground floor shops with residential apartments above for anyone who is interested in living over the shop.

• Patricia Kelly is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

The majority of visitors to Brussels as well as residents of the city are likely to have picked their way at least once through the restaurant tables that line the rue des Bouchers (Butchers’ Street) and the adjoining maze of streets just behind the Grand’ Place.