From September, municipalities within the Metropolitan Region of Eindhoven (MRE) will be able to submit proposals to access Beethoven funding for housing construction. This was announced at the Metropolitan Conference, where ministers and local councillors gathered to discuss the progress of Project Beethoven.
A total of €245 million has been made available through the Beethoven deal to stimulate housing construction in the region. The pressure on public housing has been longstanding, partly due to the rapid growth of the high-tech sector.
However, the hundreds of millions from Project Beethoven will not transform the situation overnight. “We need to add 62,000 homes across the region. Our goal is to build 8,000 homes per year, but at present we are only reaching 4,000 annually. It’s an enormous task,” says Suzan van de Goor, Chair of Space & Housing at the MRE.
Next Steps
Municipalities, housing associations, and developers are all eligible to apply for the funds, provided their projects can commence before 2030 and be completed by 2033. “And all of those proposals have been submitted promptly,” Van de Goor notes.
Therefore, the region is ready for the next step, says Van de Goor. ‘In September we expect that the ticket office can open, by the end of the year we expect the first subsidy tranche to be divided up.’
Nitrogen
Housing construction is therefore expected to pick up momentum from September. In doing so, there is one obstacle that is beyond the region’s own control. ‘We can do a lot ourselves as a region, but we really cannot solve the nitrogen problem ourselves,’ says Eindhoven mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
Building projects on the edge of Natura 2000 areas cause excessive nitrogen emissions. To protect nature, these projects require a special permit. This delays many construction projects.
For now, the nitrogen file is not breaking the region. “But the moment when projects do have to be stopped because of nitrogen emissions is getting closer,” Dijsselbloem said. ‘To solve that problem, we really need help from The Hague.’
Source: Studio040
For Eindhoven News: Chaitali Sengupta.
