Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: citizen participation pioneer

Brussels' participation pioneer

Woluwe-Saint-Lambert has approximately 61,000 inhabitants. In 2008, it became the first Brussels municipality to adopt a citizen participation code. Olivier Maingain (DéFI) leads the municipality with Les Engagés.

Transparency: 5 out of 6 criteria

The budget and council minutes (dedicated page organised by year) are published online, the council has been livestreamed since 2019, the mandate registry is accessible, and the municipality runs a participatory budget of EUR 200,000/year with 60 to 80 annual meetings. No dedicated Open Data portal.

Citizen participation: a model

Woluwe-Saint-Lambert devotes EUR 200,000 per year to its participatory budget, the highest among Brussels municipalities. The 2008 participation code structures 60 to 80 citizen meetings per year.

Recent developments

A rare achievement: Woluwe-Saint-Lambert is the only Brussels municipality to lower its property tax (−15 points), thanks to a budget surplus. The Poseidon pool is closed for 6 months of renovation works.

M7 metro: provisional court win against nuisances (7 July 2026)

The municipality and 28 residents obtained, on 7 July 2026 before the justice of the peace, a provisional agreement limiting the circulation of faulty M7 metro trains (vibrations and noise) on line 1, along Avenue de Broqueville and Avenue Vandervelde: these trains will no longer run between 10pm and 6am on weekdays, nor from Friday 10pm to Monday 6am, until 30 September 2026. The proceedings, launched in May 2024, still await a ruling on the merits, expected in the second quarter of 2027. The alderman for Mobility, Grégory Matgen, called the agreement "a first relief", stressing it is "not the end of our fight". Context: the M7 trains have suffered a wheel defect since 2021, with a repair programme covering around 1,000 wheels and replacement planned from October 2025 to September 2026.

Sources: Municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, official statement (7 July 2026); RTBF (7 July 2026); L'Avenir, La Libre (2 July 2026).

Removal of the Vergote tunnel announced (25 July 2026)

The Brussels mobility minister announced the removal of the Vergote tunnel, located under boulevard Brand Whitlock, on the boundary between the commune and Schaerbeek.

The removal is part of the redevelopment of boulevard Reyers, where pedestrian crossings will be brought back to street level. The decision was welcomed by the commune's mayor.

Neither the decree nor the works timetable has been published at this stage. The regional detail of this measure appears on the mobility domain card.

Source: BX1 (25 July 2026). Confidence: unconfirmed (ministerial announcement relayed by a single press source).