Utrecht city council is flouting an unwritten rule that no building in the city may exceed the height of the Dom tower with a new housing project it describes as a ‘vertical village’.

The new housing project comprises three high rise blocks, one of which will be 140 metres tall, well above the 112 metres of the iconic Dom tower.

‘We realise that any building higher than the Dom has to be very special indeed,’ alderman Klaas Verschuure, who presented the plans, said. The new builds will provide 1,100 new homes and will be ready in 2023.

An earlier attempt to top the Dom was voted down in 2010, NOS writes. The tower, which dates from the 16th century, is still the highest church tower in the country.