The 250 short stay apartment units being assembled at the former sugar beet factory grounds were meant to be ready for students to move in on the 1st of October.
Translation by Traci White
According to Dagblad van het Noorden, move in day for the international student housing will be delayed for two weeks. That means that the students who have reserved the rooms will have to remain in temporary housing at a former school at the Metaallan and the Damsterdiep longer than expected.
The students will get 250 euros back for the first two weeks of rent, but they will have to pay for their longer-than-expected stays at the temporary locations.
Rizoem
Many of the future tenants have expressed frustration and disappointment about the announced delay and the lack of timely communication from Rizoem, the company behind the housing project. Dick Janssen, a representative of Rizoem, told the Dagblad that they are also dismayed by the delay, but disputed the student’s claims that they had not been communicative enough. “We had been stating all along that having the apartments ready by the 1st of October would be tricky.”
The company went on to say that they would rather take a couple of additional weeks to make sure the housing was truly ready for residents to move in that to stick to the planned opening date but providing unfinished units.
Plans to make the containers available to students at the former factory grounds in the west of the city were announced in July. The units are expected to remain at the site for up to a decade, and students have been applying for the rooms in batches through At Home in Groningen over the past few months.
Rent
The housing project has been faced with a number of challenges along the way. In August, Sikkom reported that the universities in Groningen were unpleasantly surprised to hear that Rizoem was charging excessive fees to tenants to cover expenses, such as furnishing the room, that the company should have been paying themselves.
Student members of University Council at the RUG have objected to housing foreign students at a location so far away from the heart of the city, as well as the short stay nature of the contracts and the high rent prices being charged for the rooms.
