The municipal executive council for the city of Groningen and Dutch Minister of the Interior, Kajsa Ollongren, signed a housing deal on Tuesday committing to building 20,000 new homes in the municipality by 2030.
Translation by Traci White
According to the Groninger Internet Courant, the municipality of Groningen had previously determined that 20,000 new homes needed to be built by 2030 in response to the persistent housing shortagein the city.
On Tuesday, the municipal executive council, which includes the mayor and city alderpeople, formally signed a housing deal with Dutch Minister of the Interior, Kajsa Ollongren, confirming that the national government would support the city.
Rental permits
That support is not just symbolic: the national government is allocating 500,000 euros for the implementation of a new policy developed in Groningen to grant address-based rental permits to landlords, which can be revoked if there are complaints against the landlords, and 250,000 will go toward a pilot to fix parking issues in De Wijert neighbourhood. Dagblad van het Noorden reports that the landlord permit system came into effect on the 1st of January and is one of the first of its kind in the Netherlands.
The main objective of the financial stimulus is to accelerate construction of new housing across the country. In Groningen, that means that changes will be coming to several areas in the short term, namely the Eemskanaal zone, the Suikerfabriek terrain, the Meerstad extension and Selwerd. The funding is meant to help with the realization of an addition 8,000 homes in the city by 2023, and another 12,000 on top of that by 2020.
Eemskanaal zone and Suikerfabriek
The municipality is planning to submit a request to the national government later this year to include the Eemskanaal zone and the Suikerfabriek terrain in a new housing experiment. The experiment is intended to accelerate the approval and implementation of redevelopment plans by at least six months.
In Selwerd, the funding is earmarked to be spent on improving livability in the neighbourhood. In combination with previously allocated funding to help the neighbourhood transition to a gas grid-free zone, the city and national government are reportedly hoping that Selwerd can serve as an example of urban renewal for the rest of the country.
The Dutch national government is planning to work closely with five regions to tackle the persistent housing shortage: Groningen, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam/The Hague and Eindhoven. The plan is to build 75,000 homes nationwide in the coming years in order to meet growing demand.
