Outgoing minister Ollongren thinks that with the extra money from Budget Day, 75,000 new homes can be completed more quickly. It’s about 1 billion euros, for which she proposes a global distribution in a letter to the House of Representatives.
€500 million will be invested in removing obstacles to make it easier to get 14 large-scale construction projects off the ground. These construction sites are located in the Randstad conurbation and in and around a number of large cities, such as Groningen, Zwolle and the Brabant cities of Tilburg, Breda and Eindhoven.
Demolish
Construction has already started in some cities, but there are still all kinds of hurdles that could lead to delays. This may concern old factories or companies, the purchase or demolition of which is expensive. Ollongren hopes that in this way about 35,000 homes, which are also affordable, will be ready for occupancy more quickly. It is not yet clear how it will distribute the 500 million among the cities.
In addition, 250 million euros of the extra Budget Day money will go to the Woningbouwimpuls, with which 40,000 additional homes can be built throughout the country. And another 250 million is earmarked for teams of construction specialists and bottlenecks such as the staff shortage at the Council of State, which is causing backlogs in the handling of appeal procedures.
Construction projects in the Netherlands are sometimes seriously delayed because opponents of the construction plans file legal objections with the Council of State.
Students
On top of that 1 billion euros, another 100 million euros will go to housing for the ‘focus groups’, such as the homeless, students, the elderly and permit holders. They need affordable social housing, but there is a great demand for this. Ollongren does not clarify how she intends to arrange accommodation for this group.
There is now a housing shortage of 279,000 homes and the housing shortage will only increase further until 2025. The minister emphasizes that building new homes takes a lot of time and that everything must be done to avoid delays. The billion for housing will be spent over ten years.
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