The Eindhoven city council has reached agreements with coalition parties in the municipal council on the implementation of the revised housing programme. This is evident from correspondence between the council and coalition parties requested by Forum voor Democratie (FvD).
It is rare for policy documents to be so closely coordinated with coalition parties in the municipal council. For example, the cooperation programme between the municipal council and the executive committee, which dates from June 2023, explicitly mentions a ‘level playing field’ . This means that coalition and opposition parties are informed simultaneously about politically sensitive policy plans and thus have equal access to information.
This agreement was violated with the revision of the housing programme, because the coalition was informed of the content of those plans earlier than the opposition parties in the council. This was revealed in the correspondence requested by FvD. For example, it can be read that Groen-Links councillor Rutger Rauws proposes some adjustments in a Microsoft Teams chat.
It also becomes clear that councillors communicated with their own parties about the housing programme, namely mobility councillor Robert Strijk with D66 party leader Chris Dams, and the then CDA party leader Remco van Dooren with KnoopXL councillor Stijn Steenbakkers.
Common practice
Nevertheless, according to Councillor Mieke Verhees, this is a “common working method”, as she stated when asked after an emergency debate on 21 October. “We can make a big deal out of this. It is not the council proposal that was forwarded, but the substantive document, and that is what you do in a coalition. In a healthy partnership, you consult with each other,” Verhees told Studio040.
In that emergency debate, it was PvdA councillor Rosa van den Nieuwenhof who said she had received the document earlier. Coalition partners D66, CDA and GroenLinks also admitted this afterwards. ‘That should not have happened,’ said D66 party leader Chris Dams at the time.
New blow
The revelations seem to deal a new blow to the trust between the coalition and the opposition. In the area of housing policy, in particular, the necessary administrative disputes had already been fought out in the municipal council, partly due to dissatisfaction with the Jagershoef and Vaartbroek projects. In a short period of time, the councillor received two motions of censure, partly due to the scaling back of ambitions.
Discussed
The review of housing policy included the intention to scale back the affordability target for new-build homes from 85 per cent to 72 per cent. This is despite the council previously stating that it was determined to stick to the 85 per cent target.
The programme will be discussed on Tuesday in the municipal council, where the correspondence between the council and the coalition faction will undoubtedly also be discussed.
