Muyters was, until selected by Flanders’ minister-president Kris Peeters to join the government, head of the employers’ organisation Voka. In that capacity, he worked to bring a legal action in the Constitutional Court against a housing law introduced at the end of the first Peeters administration and due to come into force this week (1 September).

The housing decree, as it is known, obliges all major development projects to include a proportion reserved for social housing. The aim is to fulfil a promise to provide 63,000 new social homes by 2020, tackling long waiting lists at the same time as battling slum landlords who exploit those who have nowhere but the private rental sector to turn. There are at present 58,000 on a waiting list for a social home, with an average waiting time of 2.5 years, according to housing minister Freya Van den Bossche. The 2020 target will cost an estimated €6.5 billion.

Property developers oppose the decree, predictably, because of the burden it places on them to tackle a problem that does not concern them. Providing a proportion of social houses will increase the prices of other homes on the same site, they argue, forcing home-owners to subsidise tenants and pushing the responsibility of the government onto ordinary families.

Voka gathered the complaints of contractors and developers and bundled them into a case for the Constitutional Court. Technically, the complaint has still to be officially lodged, but Voka last week confirmed that would “in all likelihood” be done.

It will then be up to Muyters to fight on the government’s side against a case he was instrumental in bringing. “Philippe Muyters at present fulfils the function of Flemish minister for urban planning, and in that capacity will faithfully carry out the governing agreement,” his office said last week in a statement.

Meanwhile the price of property went down in Flanders by 3% in the second quarter. The average price of a family home is now under €180,000. In the same period, prices in Wallonia rose. Figures for Brussels are not calculated on a quarterly basis.

Pepingen is the most expensive municipality in the region, with an average price of €324,500. Communes around Brussels hold five of the top 10 slots, while Mesen in West Flanders, Belgium’s tiniest city with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, is the cheapest place to buy a house; the average price stands at €101,000, though the properties available on the Immoweb website as Flanders Today went to press ranged from €367,500 (four beds, 4.05 ares) down to €73,500 (two beds, garden).